Church, discussion with Juve trainers: now more exams

But what does Federico Chiesa have? The question is asked by Juventus fans and… not only. The Juventus striker himself would like a sure and quick answer, which at the moment no one can give him. Yet the right knee continues to bother. He too was in training on Friday, so much so that he got into rather heated discussions with the club’s trainers who asked him to force it a bit. “It hurts, I can’t,” Faith objected to the insistent requests of the staff. And, in fact, Massimiliano Allegri then excluded him from the squad for yesterday’s match against Verona. Now, however, there remains the need to see clearly, to find an answer to the question that torments everyone and the Church above all.

Twice in the last few weeks, Chiesa underwent instrumental tests at JMedical, then during the break for the national teams he flew to Austria to see Professor Fink, the same luminary who operated on his left knee in January 2022. But all the visits, both to Turin and to Innsbruck, did not highlight any particular problems. Allegri recently spoke generically of tendonitis, but the pain Federico suffers from seems too important to be justified by a simple inflammation. So Juve’s medical staff are now planning to investigate further with a fiberoptic arthroscopy. An even more in-depth examination, also to dispel the suspicion of some, that Chiesa would suffer from a sort of psychological block that would prevent him from pushing again. He almost was an imaginary patient or so. But Fede has never been a player who saves money, on the contrary. And in the first leg match against Freiburg in the Europa League, for example, he remained on the pitch (Juve had run out of substitution slots…) despite the fact that he was practically unable to run because of the pain.

On the eve of the match against Verona, Allegri said he was confident he would have Chiesa available for the first leg of the Coppa Italia semi-final against Inter the day after tomorrow. We will see in the coming days, but unless there are sudden improvements, it seems difficult to imagine him capable and enlisted. At least until you understand what exactly he suffers from.