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Fantastic news, ladies and gents: Juventus' already banged up squad has taken another couple of hits.
Defenders Andrea Barzagli and Angelo Ogbonna were not part of the 19-man squad called up by manager Antonio Conte for Juve's second leg tie against Fiorentina in the Europa League's Round of 16 on Thursday night in Florence. There has been no time table in regards to how much time each player will miss, but the immediate issue is that both of them won't be available against Fiorentina less than 24 hours from now.
Based on the rumblings floating around in the Italian press the last few days, the chances of Barzagli — who had to pull out of the starting lineup against Genoa over the weekend because of a calf problem — taking part in tomorrow night's second leg against Fiorentina was pretty much were pretty much non-existent.
The reason for Ogbonna's exclusion? Juventus' official website says the following:
Missing from the traveling party is Angelo Ogbonna, who reported muscular discomfort in his left thigh during yesterday's training session. This morning he underwent medical examinations which revealed a first grade tear of his adductor longus muscle.
Welp. Whenever I see a sentence about a player's diagnosis that involves 'tear,' that doesn't sound so good.
All 19 players, including a pair of defenders from the primavera squad, are as follows:
1 Buffon
3 Chiellini
4 Caceres
6 Pogba
9 Vucinic
10 Tevez
14 Llorente
18 Osvaldo
19 Bonucci
20 Padoin
21 Pirlo
22 Asamoah
23 Vidal
26 Lichtsteiner
30 Storari
33 Isla
34 Rubinho
38 Mattiello
39 Romagna
That's not exactly the 19-man squad I was hoping for. The list of injured players is growing by the day, though.
We knew there would be no Simone Pepe included in the squad for Fiorentina due to his long-term injuries that never seem to ever go away. And because they missed out on the 1-0 win over Genoa this past Sunday, the odds that Claudio Marchisio and Sebastian Giovinco would be part of the traveling squad weren't exactly very good. Same goes for Federico Peluso, who missed the Genoa game with the flu and now has some kind of muscle issue in his thigh that looks like it will keep him out a good amount of time.
Now we can add Barzagli and Ogbonna to the list of injured players.
At least Simone Padoin is still healthy. So Antonio Conte has that going for him, which is...yeah.
