On Monday morning, the Bundesliga waited with bated breath for news out of Cologne. When it came, German football breathed a collective sigh of relief.
At the end of last week, three Cologne staff members had tested positive for the coronavirus, throwing the league's plans to restart later this month into doubt and prompting one of their team mates to sound the alarm.
On Monday, the club announced that a second round of tests had revealed no further cases. Any other result may well have buried the Bundesliga's restart plans for the foreseeable future.Attention will now turn instead to Wednesday, when Angela Merkel and Germany's regional state premiers meet once again to discuss the country's lockdown measures.
Having kicked the football can down the road in last week's meeting, the politicians are expected to make a final decision on the Bundesliga this time around.
Yet even if Merkel and Co give football their blessing, there may yet be trouble ahead. The Cologne saga, while not upturning the apple cart completely, has left a sour taste which could linger for a while.
Much of that is down to communication. Following the positive tests last week, Cologne's Belgian Birger Verstraete became the first Bundesliga player to openly voice concern over the league's plan, and he was quickly slapped down for doing so.
'It's not up to me to decide what to do with the Bundesliga but I can say my head is not on soccer,' he told Belgian broadcaster VTM.
He also called the decision not to quarantine the entire team 'bizarre'.Cologne reacted heavy-handedly, pointing out that quarantine measures were decided by local health authorities, not by the club, and making Verstraete apologise for his 'emotional' interview in a clarifying article on the club website.
As one commentator put it, the club's reaction was 'questionable' to say the least.
'Cologne's reaction fits the image that a lot of football's protagonists are currently projecting: blinkers on, defend the plans and somehow push the season through by the end of June,' wrote ARD's Volker Schulte.
Given that the league and the clubs have repeatedly insisted that their plan puts the health of players and staff first, it is remarkable how little understanding was shown for Verstraete's position.
Some have understandably questioned whether the reaction would have been the same if, say, Bayern Munich's Thomas Muller or Manuel Neuer had voiced similar concerns.
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