Douglas Costa returns to training ahead of Juventus’ trip to Fiorentina

We sat here one week ago worried that Juventus might not have any wingers available for their game against Sassuolo. We sit here one week later thinking — and probably being thankful — that the massive injury crisis in attack will have lasted all of about five or six days.

Just a few days after Federico Bernardeschi gutted his way through Juventus’ thorough 7-0 thumping of Sassuolo, another summer signee who has battled an injury as of late, Douglas Costa, officially returned to training on Wednesday. Based on the fact that Juventus are now on the eve of their annual trip to Florence to play Fiorentina, good news in regard to injuries is very much appreciated.

From juventus.com’s recap of the squad’s training session on Wednesday:

The team focused on tactics at Vinovo this morning to prepare themselves for Friday’s trip to Florence, where they will take on Fiorentina at the Stadio Artemio Franchi at 20:45 CET.

Douglas Costa returned to the group today, whilst Stefano Sturaro, who yesterday reported a non-serious sprained knee and left ankle followed a personalised training session.

Just a hunch here, but I think there will be a lot more people heralding Costa’s return from injury rather than sitting there stressing out about what Struaro’s injury timetable may be. It is “non-serious” after all, so I guess there might not be too much to worry about anyway.

Of course, we don’t really know how Max Allegri will handle Costa’s return to full training. Allegri could very well use Costa as an option off the bench with a starting role against Tottenham on Tuesday night in mind. Based on how Costa was playing before he got injured against Chievo, I doubt that Costa will be on the bench when Spurs come to town next week.

But, at least the first step of the equation is done. Now that Costa has returned to training, we can actually talk about how he’s going to be used in the next couple of games. And based on how things were looking with Juve’s wingers all of about seven days ago, we needed some good injury news for a change.