Report: Andrea Barzagli to miss up to two months with thigh injury

We, understandably, haven’t seen much of Andrea Barzagli on the field this season. At 37 years old, nobody could expect him to be the same player who could handle such a heavy workload for the vast majority of his Juventus career. Instead, it’s been a low-key season for one of Juve’s most experienced squad members.

And, according to La Gazzetta dello Sport, we will continue to not see much of Barzagli the next couple of months. But not for the same reasons why he’s barely played this season.

Barzagli’s 2018 is over after he suffered a thigh injury in training on Monday. A day later, the Gazzetta reported that the thigh injury won’t keep Barzagli out just a couple of weeks, but into 2019 as well, with as much as a two-month absence in the realm of possibility for the 37-year-old defender. Just a few hours after the Gazzetta’s initial report, Juventus confirmed that Barzagli suffered the injury, stating this in Tuesday’s roundup of the day’s training session:

Following a muscle problem sustained during yesterday’s session, Andrea Barzagli was subjected to tests that showed a lesion to the quadriceps femoris of the right thigh, for which there is the chance that he could be out for a short period. However, further test will be necessary to establish the most appropriate treatments.

However, as you can probably notice, there is no timetable as to how long Barzagli will officially be out for. Basically it’s the same thing we’ve heard from Juventus in regard to a good number of the squad’s injuries suffered recently — more tests to come, and then things will be monitored over the coming days. Or something like that.

With Leonardo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini the clear 1-2 choice in the center of Juve’s four-man backline this season, it’s not like Barzagli missing time due to injury is going to throw things off kilter all that much. Out of all of Juve’s outfield players, only Moise Kean has played fewer minutes than Barzagli through the first 14 Serie A fixtures. Even Juve’s No. 2 goalkeeper, Mattia Perin, has logged more minutes than Barzagli, with Medhi Benatia and Daniele Rugani the main choices to turn to when Max Allegri needs to do a bit of squad rotation. (Which will probably happen soon based on how many matches Juve have over the next four weeks.)

But still, injuries are stupid and we don’t like them. They will always be stupid. That will never change — and you know this.