Reports: Juan Cuadrado injured on international duty, now a doubt for Sampdoria, Barcelona fixtures

It wouldn’t be an international break if there wasn’t some kind of injury-related happenings going down as players start to make their way back to Turin.

It’s not Mario Mandzukic. It’s not Giorgio Chiellini. It’s not Sami Khedira. It’s not only of the players we’ve become accustomed to worrying about when they head off to their respective national teams.

No, according to a handful of reports on both Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning in Italy, Juventus winger Juan Cuadrado suffered a thigh injury while on international duty with Colombia on Tuesday. And, as a result, his availability for Sunday afternoon’s match against Sampdoria — as well as Juve’s Champions League showdown with Barcelona — has come into question.

Juan Cuadrado has a strain in the adductor muscle of his left leg. The Colombian winger will return from China today and begin a personalized program. His availability for this weekend's match against Sampdoria is in doubt.

(Source: Gianluca Di Marzio)

Don’t worry. I will not be throwing shade at Cuadrado. I know that we’ve suddenly gotten that reputation on Twitter. (That’s a whole different story for a completely different day. Or you could just search the BWRAO account’s mentions on any given game day and you’d get a close glimpse at what I’m talking about here.)

Surely when Cuadrado gets back to training with the rest of his Juventus teammates there will be some kind of update regarding his condition. If Cuadrado is injured and his status for Sunday’s game against Sampdoria is suddenly thrown up in the air, it could open the door for — GASP! — Douglas Costa or Federico Bernardeschi to get a rare start and log some quality minutes.

And things will get even more interesting to see what direction Max Allegri goes if Cuadrado is out when Barcelona comes to town a few days later.

We will cross that bridge when we come to it, though.

For the time being, if he’s injured and could miss Juve’s first game out of the international break, at least Juan is in good enough spirits to wish Paulo Dybala a happy 24th birthday on Twitter. And apparently add some hats to a photo that he probably grabbed off a Google image search.