Alex Sandro injured while on international duty with Brazil

What, you really thought Juventus, as a club, were going to get through the international break without one of its players getting injured while on international duty?

Ha.

Juventus announced on its official website that left back Alex Sandro has picked up a muscle injury while on international duty with Brazil, confirming reports earlier in the week that suggested he had been injured in training. While there was no severity of the injury stated by Juventus themselves, the fact that Sandro has returned from international duty has made us extend our prayer circle for Giorgio Chiellini to include the guy who usually plays to his left in defense.

After all of that, here is the brief update from juventus.com:

After having returned from the Brazilian national team training camp, Alex Sandro was given further medical examinations, which confirmed the extent of the injury.

The player has a muscular issue with his right thigh and will begin physiotherapy today.

This is fine. Everything is fine.

Just to re-establish the current situation facing Juventus coming out of the international break where they face AC Milan and Real Madrid in the span of four days...

• Giorgio Chiellini is injured.
• Alex Sandro is injured.
• Federico Bernardeschi is injured.
• Juan Cuadrado is injured.
• Miralem Pjanic is suspended for the first leg against Real Madrid.
• Medhi Benatia is suspended for the first leg against Real Madrid.

Sure, the injury list isn’t what it once was when you also had the likes of Paulo Dybala, Gonzalo Higuain and Mattia De Sciglio missing games, but the fact that Juve could be missing the left half of their back four is a pretty good reason to be sitting there uneasy.

Maybe this Sandro injury news is nothing and this time next week as Juve are just a few days away from facing Milan he’s training with the rest of the group like it’s nothing at all. But the simple fact that Sandro has left Brazil’s squad and returned to Turin because of the injury, well, that’s just something that doesn’t fill me with tons of optimism — especially knowing who is waiting there in the wings on Juventus’ schedule.