This weekend, however, the sporting world will witness footballers engaged in a more profound social distancing as the Bundesliga becomes the first major European league to return to action in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Opinion in Germany appears sharply divided between those who believe this will be a welcome and, yes, morale-boosting reminder of normal life and those who believe it is a rash gamble that could backfire with players risking falling prey to infection.

The German Football Association (DFB) has attempted to put in place as many safety measures as can be humanly deployed.

Before today’s scheduled matches, players involved have been isolated in seven-day training camps and regularly tested for coronavirus. Before games they are directed to alternate time spent in the dressing rooms, to remain 1.5 metres apart and to wear face masks.

Once vacated those dressing rooms will be disinfected, as will the match balls during the games.

Substitutes must sit with at least one empty space between them and retain their masks. Managers and coaches must also wear masks at all times - so presumably players are preparing themselves for an afternoon of muffled abuse.

But reality tugs grimly at this vision of sporting respite. Despite all the preparations, there have been coronavirus cases this month at both Dynamo Dresden and FC Koln.

Will players be in two minds about pulling out of serious tackles, or heading duels? Understandable if so. It remains to be seen.

In this, as in so many areas of current life, we are in uncharted territory. These Bundesliga matches will take place in stadiums that are, to all intents and purposes, empty, with just a smattering of television, media and emergency services staff present.

It is an unedifying prospect. But as my old matron friend used to say whenever she had to deal with a health problem or crisis - it’s better than the alternative.

That unpalatable but practical truth has been reluctantly embraced by the man at the head of the sport that remains the paramount offering of the summer Olympic Games - World Athletics President Sebastian Coe.

He accepts that meetings may have to take place in empty stadiums as the sport attempts to return to normality in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier this week the World Athletics flagship series, the Diamond League, announced a new provisional calendar of 11 meetings this year, starting in August and running through to October.

Asked by insidethegames if circumstances may require athletes’ efforts to be viewed via TV rather than directly by spectators, Coe responded: "In the short term we may have to compromise on that.

"We can’t be oblivious or tin-eared to what we are being told by local communities and public health authorities. It may well mean that.

"It’s clear that football is going to come back quite quickly with the Bundesliga plans. And that will be behind closed doors.

"I don’t think anybody is contemplating this as the ideal long-term solution - sport would wither on the vine quite quickly if that were the case.

"But that may well be a compromise we have to make in order to get the athletes back into competition, leagues finished, at least some kind of competition."

Coe remains heartened, however, by the fact that, as an individual sport with numerous field events, athletics is uniquely well-placed to be creative about generating competition during lockdown that can be widely viewed by a remote audience.

On May 3 this was triumphantly demonstrated by the self-styled Ultimate Garden Clash involving Renaud Lavillenie, Armand 'Mondo' Duplantis and Sam Kendricks,

The three pole vaulters were connected via a live video as they competed contemporaneously in their own back gardens and the event attracted more than 250,000 live views globally, with more than one million people watching the broadcast around the world within 24 hours of it taking place.

Today a second Ultimate Garden Clash of pole vaulters, involving Olympic champion Katerina Stefanidi of Greece, two-time American indoor champion Katie Nageotte and Canada’s Commonwealth champion Alysha Newman is due to take place.

"In the short term we know what the challenge is," Coe added. "It’s getting competition back on. And we have one advantage that a lot of sports don’t have at the moment because we are an individual sport in essence.

"When we do the think tanks, one of the things that often gets trotted out as a challenge is the fact that we are not a team sport and that we don’t generate the same tribal loyalties that team sports do.

"But interestingly during the pandemic, being an individual sport has allowed us to probably be more creative and to do more things than some of the team sports. The Ultimate Garden Clash is quintessentially that. You are not worrying about getting 22 people off to a pitch and you are not worrying about contact sport like boxing or rugby."

The second Ultimate Garden Clash may not stir spectators as deeply as the Bundesliga action - but it will be conducted in a genuinely lighthearted, risk-free atmosphere. As such it will feel more like sport than business.