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Juventus survived Wednesday night without Paul Pogba. Now they're about to find out if they can do the same for the next two months.
The three-time Italian champions announced Thursday that Pogba, their 22-year-old star midfielder, will be out for 50 days due to a hamstring injury he suffered against Dortmund 24 hours earlier. Pogba was injured when he went in on a 50-50 tackle and felt his hamstring pull as he landed on the ground. He tried to stay on the field, but was subbed out and replaced by Andrea Barzagli just a few minutes later after he was deemed unable to continue in the decisive second leg.
The official statement from juventus.com:
Paul Pogba this afternoon underwent an MRI scan after coming off midway through the first half of last night's Champions League match with Borussia Dortmund in Germany.
The scan revealed a grade two myotendinous junction tear of his biceps femoris. He is expected to return to competitive action within the next 50 days.
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Of all the injury blows Juventus has dealt with this season, this might as well be the biggest of them all simply because of when in the season it is taking place. Sure, there's a 14-point lead in Serie A, but with Juventus storming into the Champions League quarterfinals on Wednesday night with a 3-0 win over Borussia Dortmund, Pogba's importance would have been just that much greater.
Now, he becomes the latest player to join the length injury list that already includes midfielders Andrea Pirlo, Kwadwo Asamoah, Luca Marrone and Stefano Sturaro. And that's just the start of it.
No matter who Juve's quarterfinal opponent is when the latest Champions League draw takes place on Friday, they;ll know they won't be seeing Paul Pogba and his next fancy hairstyle.
For that matter, we won't be seeing much of Pogba at all as we start to hit the home stretch of the season. At least there's that 14-point lead to ease the pain just the slightest bit, right? ...right.
