Filip Kostic leaves Serbia camp with tendon injury, could miss Verona game

There’s one. You can always bet on it, folks.

There is always one when an international break hits the midway point and we start to get within a few days of the club game getting going again. This time around, it just so happens to be about one of Juventus’ most reliable players come the turn of the calendar year.

Serbia manager Dragan Stojkovic announced Sunday that winger Filip Kostic has left the team’s training camp ahead of its Euro 2024 qualifying match against Montenegro due to an Achilles heel issue that popped up in training. Kostic will return to Turin and undergo tests at J Medical within the next day or two, but it is pretty much assumed at this point that his status is now up in the air for Juve’s resumption of play on the first day of April against Hellas Verona.

Stojkovic said of Kostic’s injury: “Kostic has left the retreat, and it’s bad news for us. He has a sore Achilles tendon. We didn’t want to take any chances and that’s why we decided to send him back to his club.”

Channel your extreme Junior Soprano voice as you take a deep breath and say “Goooooooood dammit.”

With all of the injury issues Juve had going into the international break with some of their best wide players like Federico Chiesa and Angel Di Maria, the last thing Max Allegri needed to see happen was for the guy who has played the third-most amount of minutes on the roster to be added to the injury list. That is, at least for now, where Kostic finds himself until he undergoes scans and the severity of the Achilles tendon inflammation that he is suddenly dealing with.

If Kostic is out for next Saturday’s trip to Verona, then it could open up an opportunity for youngster Samuel Iling-Junior to get his first Serie A start. The 19-year-old Englishman is coming off a strong showing with the Under-20 England squad where he scored a pair of goals against Germany.