Heading into the new season, Mohamed Elyounoussi has made an admission regarding playing inside of an empty Celtic Park.
Celtic are returning to competitive action this Sunday against Hamilton in Glasgow. Despite all that has happened the push for ten-in-a-row is finally here, albeit a little differently than we all expected. The novel corona virus has changed a lot of things in the world and the sporting landscape is no exception. With large crowds discouraged and even outright banned the bosses of the industry will have to get creative when it comes to generating atmosphere in an empty stadium.
This is where the PA system will play a big role in getting fans around the world excited for the beautiful game once again and no one is as happy as Mohamed Elyounoussi, who played in a friendly against Ross County last Sunday. He was immersed in an audio crowd, which reacted to the game live. When Mo scored, the artificial crowd went wild and when someone missed a shot the crowd would let out a collective gasp, per Sports Mole:
"“I could hear it but when you are in the game you don’t really hear noises. When I scored the guy pushed the button and it was good timing.“It’s nice to have a little bit otherwise it’s too quiet. It’s a good idea.”"
It would definitely be an eerie experience to play in an empty stadium when even Sunday League games have a crowd, Elyounoussi gives his thoughts on playing in such a quiet setting:
"“It’s strange for us players. Our stadium is meant to be crowded, meant to be noisy, so of course we miss that, we miss the fans behind us.“Mentally they always support us but we know they are behind us, we know they are watching from home, we are going to do everything we can to win and make them happy and hopefully, when everything is safe and the government let us have the fans back, we will look forward to that.”"
It is definitely key to involve the fans as much as possible during the push for 10IAR, with all of the chaos in the world it seems like a fake crowd is the only solution for now. If things improve significantly, a live crowd could really bring the noise to Celtic Park as The Bhoys go down in the history books.
Do you agree with Mohamed Elyounoussi on noise being pumped into stadiums?
Leave us a comment below.