An element of the response to that first evening of PL will mirror what happened during Dortmund-Schalke: lots of people who wouldn’t usually be enthralled by it (or even watching it) saying how dreadful it must have been because they weren’t enthralled by it.

You probably wouldn’t sit down and watch Villa-Sheff Utd if there were fans in the stadium unless you supported one of the teams. You’d probably drift away from City smashing Arsenal once David Luiz got sent off/came on.

One of the things that will be forgotten when we interpret how much we’re all able to enjoy this weird new reality is that quite a lot of football matches aren’t really compelling unless you’re emotionally invested in them anyway.

Personally - and having watched a fair bit of Germany/Spain I’m past the “this is weird” phase - it all felt encouragingly normal (on TV) to me. Think City’s banners worked *really* well. Empty seats didn’t detract from the spectacle as much. More teams will go full drape.

In contrast, having watched the end of the Coppa Italia: turns out penalty shootouts in empty stadiums are awful. No tension, no drama, no sense of jeopardy, not even a shadow of what penalties are meant to be.