Sometime during Thursday's fine-tuning session, Diego suffered a pain in his right thigh and will rested for the next 48 hours as a precaution. Unfortunately that means he'll be unavailable for the Coppa di Pace semi-finals against Real Madrid later today.
Diego seems to be pretty unlucky with us thus far, doesn't he? His injury nags don't seem to be tied to Ferrara's version of Ranieri's Vinovo death camp of last year when he single-handily took down half a dozen players and flooded our infirmary. On the whole, Ciro's men are all relatively healthy in comparison to this time last year, so I assume the playmaker is just trying too hard to impress and in a rush to comeback.
Giovinco little buddy, here's your chance. Strap on those boots and go at Madrid like this is some Champions League Group of 16 bout. Ferrara should stick with his 4-3-1-2 formation like we used against Seongnam but we'll see if he trusts the Formica Atomica enough yet with his club's attacking reigns. I think he should, we all think he should... it's only pre-season after all and Sebastian deserves this opportunity.
In the larger scheme of things, Real's got some personnel problems of there own. Iker Casillas, Sergio Ramos, Raul Albiol, Kaka and new signing Alvaro Arbeloa are all remaining in the capital to regain match fitness following their holidays. Mahamadou Diarra, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ezequiel Garay are all also unfit and will miss out, but Arjen Robben and Karim Benzema, both of whom picked up knocks against LDU, have made the cut. Gabriel Heinze is already on his way to Marseille, while Rafael van der Vaart and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar have been omitted for technical reasons. [From Goal.com]
Probable Starting XI (4-4-2): Dudek – Torres, Pepe, Metzelder, Marcelo – Ronaldo, Lass, Gago, Granero – Benzema, Raul
Like Alessio mentioned in the earlier post... Claudio Marchisio is still recovering from acute pharyngitis and he had to train separately from the group. Also doing isolated work-outs is Jonathan Zebina, who is suffering from fatigue, but he is expected to be back to full fitness come kick-off. Felipe Melo should have regained his full fitness now to earn a place in the starting berth, while Alessandro Del Piero and Amauri, rested against Seongnam, look set to be reinstated. Momo Sissoko and Paolo De Ceglie are still out with their respective long-term ailments.
Match Links:
http://www.atdhe.net/8261/watch-juventus-vs-real-madrid
http://www.myp2p.eu/broadcast.php?matchid=44433&part=sports
IERI... OGGI... DOMANI... SEMPRE JUVE!!!