This is just the way Juventus 2024-25 season — especially the last month or so — has gone.
Just as Juve manager Thiago Motta saw one of his most important players return from injury, he saw another one of those crucial pieces go off injured early in Saturday night’s 2-2 draw against Bologna.
All of about 16 hours later, Andrea Cambiaso was limping out of his ride and working his way to the front doors of J Medical where he was set to get his injured left ankle checked out. The results revealed what had been previously reported in the couple of hours after after Saturday’s game, with Juventus announcing Sunday that Cambiaso has suffered “a slight capsular ligamentous sprain” in his left ankle, the result of blocking a bullet of a shot from Bologna’s Dan Ndoye with just a few minutes off the clock at the Allianz Stadium.
Cambiaso is now in the “his condition will continue to be monitored daily” category as other recent Juventus injuries have been thrown into lately, but his status for Wednesday night’s Champions League clash with Manchester City is now a total question mark to say the least.
In a little more positive injury news to come out of Turin on Sunday, Juventus saw midfielder Douglas Luiz return to training with the group, meaning his availability to face City has certainly gone up after missing the last six weeks due to injury.
#Juventus-#Cambiaso: gli accertamenti strumentali hanno evidenziato una modesta distrazione capsulo legamentosa della caviglia sinistra ⛔️
— Romeo Agresti (@romeoagresti) December 8, 2024
Juventus’ defense was already in a depth crunch considering the big season-ending injuries to Gleison Bremer and Juan Cabal within the last two months. But as much as Juventus would miss Cambiaso against City, having Cabal available would have certainly lightened that a little bit. But with Cambiaso now a serious doubt and Cabal now a couple weeks out from undergoing knee surgery, that means the only other option at left back is Jonas Rouhi, who has been far from a player who has looked comfortable in his handful of appearances this season.
No matter what kind of form City may arrive in Turin in, that is far from a good situation facing Motta.
Yet this is his reality. Juventus currently have three healthy fullbacks, and two of them were only promoted to the senior team at the beginning of the season. One of them has performed much better than the other one, and that fullback who hasn’t looked so good — especially of late — is the only left back who is currently healthy.