It’s the international break, so Álvaro Morata has been linked with a move back to Juventus

We weren’t even officially in the international break when the Sunday papers came out in Italy. That’s nothing new consider the Italian sports dailies live up to that exact notion. But leave it to those same Sunday papers to give us some kind of transfer rumor you would expect from a completely non-news kind of time like an international break.

So in case you were wondering how to spend your first couple of hours of the international break trying to who we’re talking about here, we’ll just embed a tweet and get on with this whole thing.

Let’s delve into this a little more...

Tuttosport claims

Alright, there you go, folks. The first day of the international break and Tuttosport is already playing with our heart strings. You want something about Axel Witsel signing with Juventus during the January transfer window? Nope, sorry, folks.

The summer saga of ‘Will he stay or will he go?’ probably dragged on longer than we wanted considering the what the ripple effects might include. Morata gave interviews saying he wanted to stay with Juventus but also how much it would mean to play for Real Madrid again. We all know what happened next, with Real Madrid using its buy-back clause to bring Morata back to the club he grew up at.

What’s one of the main things that was always going to be tough to come by when Morata returned to Madrid? Playing time.

Tuttosport’s whole basis is that Morata is lacking first team opportunities with the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema all in front of him in the pecking order. Well, it’s not like he didn’t know that already, and unless one of them leaves — which isn’t going to happen — or gets hurt, it probably will be the same part-time starter or role player kind of status for the rest of the season.

So, yeah, just in case you were wondering what the international break is going to be like, well, you have the first step right here. Good job, Tuttosport. Continue to do you.

Just for the record, what did Beppe Marotta have to say about this when asked about the matter before Juventus’ 3-0 win over Empoli on Sunday afternoon? This:

“We remember him with affection and are still very fond of him, but at the moment there is nothing concrete.”

(Source: Football Italia)

So there’s that. Read into it however you’d like to.

(I’m still very fond of Álvaro, too, Beppe, so don’t worry about that part.)