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When you initially hear that Giorgio Chiellini has had to end his stay with the Italian national team, there is not one good thought that goes through your head. Not a single one. And if there is, then you’re not thinking what just about everybody else is thinking and that the Juventus and Italy captain has returned to Turin because a visit to J Medical is in his very near future.
Well, fret not, my Juventus fan friends.
Chiellini has indeed returned to Turin. And it’s NOT because of injury.
As what seems like it was the plan all along, Chiellini has left Italy’s training camp following the Azzurri’s win over Northern Ireland on Thursday and returned to Turin. The reasoning behind Chiellini leaving camp after all of one game played after the international break, according to the likes of Goal Italia’s Romeo Agresti and others in the Italian media, had to do with his ability to not play so many minutes in such a short period of time. There’s also the factor of Italy manager Roberto Mancini wanting to have a good amount of rotation in his starting lineup for each game, meaning the likelihood of Chiellini playing a lot of minutes during the international break wasn’t all that high to begin with.
Capitolo #Chiellini: considerato che non avrebbe giocato due gare di fila, e che la terza sfida sarà utile per testare altri compagni, in piena sinergia con il c.t. Mancini è stato deciso il rientro anticipato a Torino. Nessuna polemica, nessun infortunio. 3️⃣ @GoalItalia
— Romeo Agresti (@romeoagresti) March 27, 2021
When Italy announced that Chiellini had left camp, there was no mention of why he was heading back to Turin. That, of course, caused a little bit of speculation based on the simple fact that it came all of two days after Italy played a game. Essentially, the period it would take for Chiellini to undergo any kind of medical examinations and then make a decision as to what is next.
But at 36 years old and with the injury history Chiellini has, it’s good to see some sort of preventative action being taken before something bad actually does happen. And maube, just maybe, we’ll be seeing Chiellini in more than just a scream-at-his-teammates-from-the-bench kind of role when Juventus returns to the field next weekend against Torino in the second Derby della Mole of the season. (Same goes for a certain guy who wears the No. 10, too, but that’s another matter for another day.)