It will take two to three months to find himself on the pitch again Gerard Deulofeuwhile there will be only four (scarce) days to look for a replacement.
This is the race against time undertaken yesterday at Juventus, where the hour hand is well represented by the long absence in which the diez the Catalan was sentenced after the medical consultation which will require him to undergo a new operation on his right knee, while the symbolic one of the minutes depicts the market deadline set for 8pm on Tuesday.
Within that time Andrea Sottil, and with him all the Juventus fans who still dream of Europe, expect a quality addition that can make up for the Spanish, a addition that could come from Germany, with the 24-year-old Swiss Ruben Vargas of Augsburg targeted, after trying in vain for Josip Brekalothe Croatian from Wolsburg who joined Fiorentina.
All this for the real domino effect started by the press release arrived in the late morning: «Udinese Calcio announces that, following the specialist consultation carried out, Gerard Deulofeu will have to undergo a capsular reinforcement operation on his right knee in order to increase its stability . The operation will be carried out at the Villa Stuart clinic in Rome».
This was the cold, indeed icy shower that fell on the fans and the team. Yes, because after the first official dispatch with which the club on Sunday had hurried to communicate the absence of injuries reported to Marassi, and therefore linked to the substitution after only 14 minutes of his entry into the field, and the following one on Wednesday in which he was the medical consultation was announced, linked to “repeated episodes of instability”, very few would have imagined that Deulofeu would have to go back under the knife.
He will do so in the next few days – the company has not provided any details in this regard – at Villa Stuart and most likely by Professor Pier Paolo Mariani, and therefore not in Barcelona by the Spaniard’s trusted specialist, that Joan Carles Monllau Garcia who in spring 2020 had reconstructed the front crusader. Ligament that he may have come back into play in the instability of the knee and that he must be saved.
It is a completely irrelevant problem that the medical team will have to solve with an innovative technique by acting on the anterolateral ligament. Between healing and recovery of muscle tone, the rough estimate is around two months at least. A problem for everyone, even for the Catalan who was also at the center of market attention.
Market in which Udinese will now have to run. Vargas is the first goal after Brekalo and after having almost closed for the Polish striker Mateusz Kowalskiborn in ’05 with 2 goals scored so far in 11 games at Jagiellonia Bialystok.