No club football in the top two divisions for a fortnight means Watford fans are unlikely to be alone in not enjoying the current international break.
However, five years ago football was suddenly plunged into a much longer pause as the pandemic meant the game at every level was suspended.
After the Hornets had lost 1-0 at Crustal Palace on Saturday March 7, 2020, a total of 105 days would pass until they played again, drawing 1-1 at home against Leicester City in an empty Vicarage Road stadium on Saturday June 20, 2020.
None of the 11 players who started that final pre-Covid game in March 2020 are still with Watford, and only one of the seven subs has any ongoing link to the club.
Here we look at those 16 players and where they are now:
Ben Foster – the former England international keeper was in his second spell at Vicarage Road after initially playing for the club on loan from Manchester United between 2005 and 2007.
Foster ended up playing more than 200 games for the club, although somewhat controversially it was during the Covid period that he began his popular ‘Cycling GK’ YouTube channel.
Some of his content was criticised but it has proved lucrative for Foster who now has more than 1.5m subscribers and it is an area he has focussed on since retiring after leaving Watford and spending a short spell with Wrexham.
Adam Masina – perhaps best remembered for a match-winning free-kick at Cardiff and a match-saving tackle against Norwich, the Moroccan international defender clocked up 90 appearances for Watford after joining from Bologna in 2018.
He left Watford after relegation from the Premier League in 2022 and followed that popular path to Udinese, though his game time over the next two seasons was limited.
Masina joined Torino at the start of last season, and is still at the club.
He played in the 1-0 win Serie A win over Empoli before the international break and has made a total of 38 appearances for the Italian side so far.
Craig Cathcart – well over half of the Northern Ireland international defender’s career appearances came for Watford, initially during a loan spell from Manchester United during the 2009/10 season and then when he signed permanently in 2014.
That second spell was to last nine seasons, with Cathcart a mainstay of the Watford defence for pretty much the entire time.
He ended up with some 275 appearances for the club, leaving to join Belgian side Kortrijk in 2023.
However he decided he had lost his motivation to play and retired without ever featuring for them.
Kiko Femenia – the popular Spanish full-back/wing-back had been on the books at Barcelona before moving to Vicarage Road in 2017.
Impressive during four seasons in the Premier League and almost ever-present in his one Championship campaign, Femenia left in 2022 as family needs meant he had to return to Spain.
The then-head coach Rob Edwards wanted a similar swashbuckling attack-minded replacement, but instead got the far more conservative old-style full-back Mario Gaspar.
Femenia is still playing in La Liga with Villareal, and has made 21 appearances for them this season.
Christian Kabasele – if ever there was a player who polarised opinion then it was Belgian international defender Kabasele.
He made more than 150 appearances for Watford, during which time he was loved by many fans but disliked by others.
He was a regular in the team throughout his seven seasons at the club, leaving in 2023 and becoming another who decided a spell with Udinese would be a good next move.
Kabasele has made 15 appearances this season, though his last Serie A outing was in late January.
Abdoulaye Doucoure – arguably one of the best finds from the Pozzo scouting network, Doucoure arrived as a gangly 23-year-old from Rennes in February 2016 and was immediately loaned out to Granada.
The then head coach Walter Mazzarri was unconvinced about the midfielder and Doucoure nearly left before ever getting a chance.
However, he went on to register nearly 150 appearances for the Hornets and was a pivotal figure in midfield for four seasons.
Voted Player of the Season at the end of the 2017/18 campaign, when Watford were relegated from the top-flight in 2020 it was clear Doucoure wouldn’t be making the drop with them, and a fee believed to be around £20m took him to Everton.
Since then he has made more than 150 appearances for the Toffees, and has only missed five games this season.
Will Hughes – of the many players who have come and gone in recent years, Hughes is undoubtedly one that most Watford fans would have liked to stay a little longer.
Signed from Derby for what turned out to be a bargain £8m, the midfielder was an energetic, combative and skilful part of the Hornets midfield alongside current head coach Tom Cleverley.
A key member of the team that reached the 2019 FA Cup Final and won promotion back to the Premier League two years later, Hughes signed for Crystal Palace in the summer of 2021 and has continued to be a consistent Premier League performer ever since.
Still not 30 until next month, Hughes has played 30 times for the Eagles this season.
Etienne Capoue – perhaps one of the most technically-gifted individuals ever to play for Watford, French midfielder Capoue joined from Tottenham in 2015 after a short and unremarkable spell at White Hart Lane.
He had made his name during several seasons with Toulouse, but his £10m switch to North London didn’t work out and the Hornets picked him up for only a bit more than half that figure.
Capoue was a lynchpin in the Watford midfield for four consecutive Premier League campaigns and was Player of the Season in 2018/19.
However, relegation to the Championship was quickly followed by a move to Villareal, where Capoue was man of the match as the Spanish side beat Manchester United to win the 2021 Europa League Final.
Released at the end of last season, the 36-year-old recently started playing basketball in lieu of finding a new football club.
Roberto Pereyra – it’s a reminder how times have changed that only five years ago Watford fielded a team containing Hughes, Capoue and Argentinian international Pereyra.
The Hornets don’t often sign players from Juventus, and the reported £12m fee turned out to be a snip as Pereyra’s skill and flair lit up the team for four seasons.
His 18 goals during 115 appearances included some absolute crackers, though he will also be remembered for missing a great chance early on in the 2019 FA Cup Final before Man City went on to run riot.
Another who left Vicarage Road for a move to Udinese, Pereyra spent four seasons in Serie A and is now with AEK Athens – the 34-year-old has made 26 appearances for the Greek side this season.
Troy Deeney – one of Watford’s greatest all-time players, the return the club got for the £500,000 they paid Walsall for his services in 2010 was huge.
Deeney was a talisman for the Hornets across 12 seasons at the club, scoring nearly 150 goals in more than 400 appearances, captaining the team and becoming one of the club’s most popular all-time players.
Sometimes as controversial as he is charismatic, Deeney also retained the support of the club when he received a 10-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to a charge of affray in June 2012.
However, the striker will be remembered at Vicarage Road for his goals, leadership and ability to get under the skin of opponents.
He played for his hometown club Birmingham and then Forest Green after leaving Vicarage Road, before a short and unsuccessful spell as manager of the latter, and now focusses on media and punditry work.
Ismaila Sarr – the club’s record signing and the reported £30m they paid Rennes in 2019 is very unlikely to be increased any time soon.
On his day Sarr could be a matchwinner and often he was, but the fee sometimes seemed to weigh down the Senegalese international although he was not helped by playing for a series of head coaches who didn’t know how to best use him.
Sarr scored 34 times in 131 appearances for the club, and won the Championship Goal of the Season in 2022/23 for a wonder-strike from the halfway line away at West Brom.
Sold to Marseille in the summer of 2023, Sarr returned to England 12 months later and has established himself at Crystal Palace where he has scored seven times in 34 appearances this season.
Heurelho Gomes – another extremely popular figure at Vicarage Road, Gomes joined Watford from Tottenham at the age of 33 in 2014, and became the club’s first-choice keeper for four seasons.
The Brazilian international was the club’s Player of the Season in the 2015/16 campaign, during which he saved two penalties in the same game away at West Brom.
Having spent a couple of seasons as understudy to Ben Foster, Gomes announced he was leaving Watford after relegation from the Premier League in 2020.
He moved back to Brazil to retire from the game, almost making a comeback in 2021 before paperwork problems prevented him playing for Democrata in his home country.
Craig Dawson – the defender played 31 times for Watford but almost a third of those were in empty stadia as his time at the club coincided with the pandemic lockdown.
An experienced played with more than 200 outings for West Brom in the bank when he arrived at Vicarage Road, Dawson started each of the first 13 games of the 2019/20 season and, after missing five matches following a head injury, he was pretty much first-choice for the rest of that campaign.
A combination of a new head coach, Vladimir Ivic, and the signings of William Troost-Ekong and Francisco Sierralta led to Dawson joining West Ham – it was initially a loan move that became permanent in the summer of 2021.
He spent a couple of seasons with the Hammers before joining Wolves in January 2023, and has since made more than 60 appearances for the Black Country club though he hasn’t played since the turn of the year.
Adrian Mariappa – one of the most successful homegrown Hornets of recent times, Mariappa made 340 appearances for the club during two spells, the bulk of them between his senior debut in 2005 and when he left to join Reading in 2012.
He had played Premier League football for both the Royals and Crystal Palace when he returned to Watford as a 30-year-old in 2016.
Four more seasons at Vicarage Road came to an end in summer 2020, but Mariappa continued to play on for the likes of Bristol City, Burton Albion and Salford City.
Now doing his coaching badges at Watford's London Colney training ground, Mariappa is still playing for National League side Wealdstone and the 38-year-old who has been capped 73 times by Jamaica has made 36 appearances this season – taking his career tally to a massive 563.
Nathanial Chalobah – still only 30, Chalobah came to prominence when he joined Watford from Chelsea on loan as a 17-year-old in summer 2012.
He played 42 times as Watford reached the Championship Play-Off Final, and gave a number of exceptional midfield performances as well as scoring a truly stunning goal in a game at Leicester City.
As with so many Chelsea youngsters, Chalobah became a bit of a nomad with loan spells at Nottingham Forest, Middlesbrough, Burnley, Reading and Napoli, before returning permanently to Vicarage Road in July 2017.
He spent four years back at Watford, but niggling injuries ate into his playing time and he left to join Fulham after 85 more outings.
Currently with Sheffield Wednesday, he has made 14 appearances for the Owls this season, coming off the bench during the recent 1-0 derby loss to neighbours United.
Ignacio Pussetto – for every Capoue, Pereyra and Hughes, there has been a Pussetto: a signing during the Pozzo era that just hasn’t worked out, though few have been as spectacularly unsuccessful as the Argentinian.
Signed from Udinese in January 2020 for around £7m, Pussetto stayed at Vicarage Road for three years during which time he played only 156 minutes of senior football.
Loaned to Udinese and Sampdoria, the forward eventually left in August 2023 to join Huracan in his home country and has since moved to Pumas in Mexico, where he has scored seven times in 21 appearances this season.
Danny Welbeck – picking up England internationals on free transfers doesn’t happen too often, so when Watford signed former Manchester United striker Welbeck from Arsenal in the summer of 2019, it had all the portents of a great move.
However, he made only 20 appearances either side of a lengthy spell out with a hamstring injury, and when he was fit his final 10 outings were behind closed doors during the pandemic.
A spectacular overhead kick in a 2-1 win over Norwich was probably his most memorable moment before leaving Watford to join Brighton in October 2020.
Welbeck has enjoyed a tremendous time on the south coast and the 34-year-old has scored 34 goals in 152 games for the Seagulls.
Andre Gray – always put forward in any discussion about the worst return for a large transfer fee paid by Watford, Gray spent four disappointing, frustrating and rarely successful seasons at Vicarage Road.
His £18m price tag looked increasingly more punchy as time went on, and any ex-Luton player has to do more than most to please the Hornets faithful.
Gray’s return of 21 goals in 126 games was a large part of the problem, and being caught hosting a party during the pandemic lockdown did little to help his popularity.
After a loan spell with QPR, he left Watford and played for Aris in Greece and Saudi club Al Riyadh before, ironically, scoring two goals during a loan spell at Plymouth against the Hornets in a 2-2 draw at Home Park earlier this season.
Gray is now with Turkish club Fatih Karagumruk where he has made seven appearances without finding the net.
