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For somebody who hasn't played an official game for club or country yet this season (even though there hasn't been many chances to do so), Giorgio Chiellini sure is getting a lot of attention thrown his direction these days.
There was the initial injury news that he injured his calf during a training session with the Italian national team. Then all the nonsense about Chiellini returning to Turin and the subsequent freakout that came along with it. There were statements issued, probably a few feathers ruffled, blah blah blah. But throughout it all, the main issue remained throughout it all — Giorgio Chiellini had to pull out of training with his Italian teammates because he got hurt.
Luckily, we have this information come across the wire from Juventus' official website on Monday:
After his release from the Italian national squad's training camp on Saturday evening, Giorgio Chiellini today underwent a scan which revealed he has sustained an edema of the soleus muscle fibres in his calf. The 30-year-old's condition will be reassessed in the next few days whilst he undertakes a rehabilitation programme
Chiellini is set to serve the third game in his three-match ban that carried over from last season when Juventus play Udinese this Saturday night in Turin, so he was set to miss this weekend regardless. No sweat there, folks.
But the obvious concern is what Chiellini's status for Tuesday night's Champions League group stage opener against Malmö is. And, according to Sky Italia and a few other Italian media outlets, it's not the most optimistic that Juventus' best defender will be walking out of the tunnel with his teammates for the Champions League anthem in seven days from now.
That might not have disaster written all over it if, say, Juventus were set to play Atlético Madrid in a week's time rather than the team most are predicting to finish at the bottom of Group A. There's also the fact that Andrea Barzagli, the other resident bearded badass in Turin, has returned to training during the international break, so Juventus aren't coming out of the international break with fewer defenders than they went in with.
Either way, though, Chiellini should probably get back to 100 percent as soon as he can. There are some relatively important games hanging out over there on the horizon.
