Cristiano Ronaldo, Douglas Costa doubts for Juve’s trip to Napoli

When it comes to Juventus seasons like this ones and years prior, swearing out injury worries has basically been a constant. We get no rest from the walking wounded, my friends, so you better get used to it ... if you haven’t already.

It’s time to add the guy who has played more minutes than any other Juve player this season to the injury list, as Cristiano Ronaldo (recently injured) joined Douglas Costa (been injured) both trained away from the main group on Wednesday afternoon. The two attackers, who have had two different kinds of season, are pretty much officially on “doubt watch” when it comes to their status for this weekend’s trip to the San Paolo to face Napoli.

From the training session recap on Juve’s official website:

After two days of rest, following the trip to Bologna, Juventus returned to training today, where the squad officially began preparation for Sunday evening’s game against Napoli, at 20:30.

The team met up this afternoon, and underneath the Spring-like sun, they took part in athletic training before working with the ball.

Circulation, possesion work, shooting, and working with space and movement was just some of the work the team focused their attention on, in what was an intense session.

Both Douglas Costa and Cristiano Ronaldo trained seperately from the group. For CR7, check ups have been scheduled for today and tomorrow following a knock to his left ankle during the game against Bologna. Tomorrow the team will return to training in the morning.

In other years, this might be a much bigger deal. But, in most years, Juventus hasn’t had a 13-point lead atop the Serie A table going into what has traditionally been a massively important game when it comes to the Scudetto race.

But, the obvious worry is that, especially in Ronaldo’s case, these injuries linger long enough where they even threaten their respective statuses for second leg against Atletico Madrid in a little less than two weeks.

You don’t wanna think, but you know you’ve thought it, too.

The good in all of this, I guess, is that Juventus’ lead is at 13 points, so it’s not like Max Allegri will be pressing the issue if he wants either Ronaldo or Costa to try and gut it out in a game that has much more riding on it than Sunday’s trip to Naples does. Allegri has much more wiggle room when it comes to resting players — or not having players try and rush back from injuries, in this case — because Juventus’ lead over Napoli is still going to be in double digits regardless of a loss this weekend.

So, now we wait. And hope that these two injuries aren’t a topic of conversation next week as Juve prepare to face Udinese.