Matthijs de Ligt confirms he will have offseason shoulder surgery

For months now we’ve been wondering when Matthijs de Ligt would have to some kind of procedure done to fix his bum shoulder. We’ve essentially known that he was going to need something done for a while due to the simple fact that just when you think it’s not an issue anymore, any kind of wrong landing or tackle could be the thing that tweaks it just enough to send shooting pain down his arm.

Or maybe it was the fact that his shoulder has been held together by so much athletic tape that it’s clearly visible no matter what jersey Juventus wears in that given game.

But with Juventus’ 2019-20 season coming to an end on Friday night against Lyon, that means de Ligt can have the shoulder procedure that he’s been likely putting off for months. (That man’s pain tolerance must be absolutely insane.) And that’s exactly what he’s going to do.

Juventus’ big 20-year-old Dutch defender told Sky Sport Italia following Friday night’s elimination from the Champions League that he will have shoulder surgery in the coming days (or weeks) to repair an injury he suffered all the way back in November and has reaggravated several times since the Serie A restart. While we don’t when exactly de Ligt will go under the knife or how long it will potentially keep him out for knowing that the 2020-21 season starts next month, we do know he will get a much-needed operation on what has been one of Juventus’ biggest lingering injury issues of the past six or eight months.

“Now I need to have that shoulder surgery,” de Ligt said on Sky Sport Italia. “t’s something that has to be done, that is going to be my focus now. Obviously, I’m disappointed that we didn’t get through to the next round, but I think that I need some time to recuperate now.”

As we said, this is a problem that has bothering de Ligt ever since he separated his shoulder Juventus’ come-from-behind win over Atalanta in Bergamo all the way back in late November. Because of the injury, de Ligt initially rarely featured in the month December, a time on the schedule where Merih Demiral took up the bulk of the playing time and showed what kind of quality he has.

But when Demiral blew out his knee against Roma in January, that was the point where de Ligt’s return to the lineup coincided with his return to top form.

And also the issues with his shoulder.

On more than one occasion during restart we saw de Ligt trying to shake off some sort of reaggravation of his separated shoulder. We were never told what kind of extent to which he re-injured it, but we knew there was something going simply by how he reacted to it. The last major knock to the shoulder came in last month’s 3-3 draw with Sassuolo at the Mapei Stadium. We expected to hear something about de Ligt’s shoulder the day after, but the only thing that was put on the record was that Giorgio Chiellini and Rodrigo Bentancur didn’t sustain any kind of muscle injuries and that’s that.

Even then we figured something was up with de Ligt’s shoulder. It was still heavily wrapped, snd it was pretty visible. Now we know why — it still wasn’t 100 percent, and the rumors of surgery taking place was quite likely whenever Juve’s season ended.

Well, the season is over now, and so comes word from de Ligt himself about the surgery.