Leeds United's new normal will be bizarre for Marcelo Bielsa's men and Whites fans - Graham Smyth

It was a far cry from the white-hot atmosphere at Elland Road the last time it was full, when Leeds United roasted Huddersfield Town.

It was so far removed from the cauldron of noise Whites and Reds created when they gathered at the City Ground for February’s game against Nottingham Forest.

There were no hairs standing on the back of the neck in the way they do when tens of thousands of people simultaneously let out a guttural roar, when Borussia Dortmund walked out to play their rivals Schalke, or when Erling Haaland’s deft touch sent the ball into the net.

That might not be a true statement if you were a Dortmund fan, decked out in yellow and black on the sofa and springing to your feet every time your team neared their team’s goal.

And, for anyone else, there may well have been a good deal of enjoyment to be had in watching live football again.

But the real litmus test for whether or not the new normal can even hold a candle to the normal we took for granted up until mid-March, will be when a team we have a genuine interest in, affinity to or affection for plays a game.

If you have skin in the game, if it means something to you, if something is at stake, something like a first return to the Premier League since 2004, then the familiar tension that verges on nausea may return, as teams make their separate way onto a pitch in an empty stadium.

The new normal isn’t the noise of ecstacy or fury escaping men, women and children, it is the sound of a ball hitting the net, the barked orders of coaches and on-field leaders, the hollow clapping of a handful of substitutes.

If the EFL do manage to pull off what still feels, even at this stage as players undergo coronavirus testing and prepare to return to non-contact training, like a remarkable and unlikely feat and stage 2019/20 fixtures, it is going to look, feel and sound bizarre.

The prospect of covering a behind-closed-doors game, which will be an historic occasion, is admittedly an increasingly appealing one but remains bizarre to even contemplate, given the necessary changes to the long-stablished matchday routine and the uncertainty as to how the business of reporting will be carried out.

Perish the thought of Adam Pope talking his listeners through a goal before throwing live, via Zoom, to Noel Whelan’s front room for the ensuing ‘Get iiiiiiiin’.

Even before we get to that point, the players will have been through as unreal an experience as many of them might ever come across.

Their return to Thorp Arch, which has already begun thanks to individual running and fitness sessions, will be welcome but it will not be normal.

In a real fillip for the ‘footballers are too pampered these days’ crowd, players will have to wash their own kit, for a start.

There will be no contact, training will all be done in small groups and they won’t get to avail themselves of the facilities Marcelo Bielsa had installed for their entertainment during down time.

There will be no hugs from the head coach, even if they send a rasping volley into the top corner at the end of a slick, rehearsed passing move.

The way they receive their training-ground tuition from Bielsa will be radically different, given the small-group nature of the initial training sessions and the removal of classroom work as an option.

Coronavirus testing, which will commence on Friday, will presumably become almost as regular an occurrence as the weigh-ins that keep players accountable on their diet.

And all of that comes before we even get to a potential ‘bubble’ phase in the lead-up to a first fixture, when the traditional matchday-eve hotel stay becomes a week-long absence from home and family life, like it did for German football ahead of their relaunch.

As much as the parents amongst us might dream of such a vacation, it will not be normal. Nothing about football’s return will be normal.

Yet this is how it’s got to be, if the sport has any chance of reappearing in our lives and on our screens.

We will all have to get used to it, for however long the world looks the way it does right now.

A socially distanced, new normal Gjanni Alioski, whatever that might look like, if ever the word normal can apply to the enigmatic Macedonian, is better than none at all.