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I'll just say I didn't expect to be typing out that headline when I originally saw this story developing four days ago.
But it's true — well, sort of, I guess. Claudio Marchisio is back training with Juventus. However, on Monday, it wasn't with the big group as the squad slowly gets back to full numbers during the current international break. Marchisio was in the gym working with the Juve trainers and doctors as he begins his recovery from his non-ACL tear injury he picked up while on international duty with the Italian national team late last week.
Gym, swim, trim, whatever. Marchisio is doing football-like activities
Here's Juventus' official web posting regarding the squad restarting its training regimen on Monday:
The Bianconeri, boosted by the returning Paolo De Ceglie and Luca Marrone, were greeted by fitness drills in the beautiful spring sunshine as they endeavour to get in peak physical condition for their upcoming encounter versus the Tuscans.
Also among the faces in Vinovo were Arturo Vidal and Claudio Marchisio. Having come back from international duty earlier today, the Chilean joined his team-mate, who was undertaking his own personal regime, in the gym.
(Just an interesting side note: No mention of Andrea Pirlo, who was rumored to be one of the other injured players to be returning to training on Monday. Maybe no news equals good news in this sense. We'll have to wait and see on that one.)
That second paragraph posted on the above article is the key one, obviously. And just for visual proof, we have this post courtesy of our beloved Principino...
Ah, Claudio. Your fondness for constant Instagram photos and visual aids keeps us so up to date better than all of the Italy doctors' ability to correctly diagnose a serious knee injury. And we thank you for it.
This is the first step in Juve's previously stated "day-to-day" diagnosis. What the exact time table looks like isn't something we know right now, but how many days it takes for Marchisio to get back to training with the main group will give us a really good idea about when he'll be back on the Juventus Stadium field.
But this is the first step. And it's a whole lot better than we thought would be happening when this crazy "Marchisio tore his ACL then didn't tear his ACL" injury saga actually began. Isn't it fun? (Well, it's better than Marchisio being out for the next six or eight months, that's for sure.)