When it comes to injuries, Juventus can barely catch a break this season, as the treatment room has been fully occupied throughout the campaign – especially in the last few months.
The defense has arguably been the department which was mostly affected by the injury bug.
Giorgio Chiellini , Leonardo Bonucci and Matthijs de Ligt had all been dealing with physical problems in the last few weeks.
Merih Demiral was the only center back full fit to play the entire 90 minutes and beyond in the second leg encounter against Porto in the Champions League.
Nonetheless, the Turkish international ended up suffering a setback of his own.
According the club’s official website, the former Sassuolo man is set to miss out on action for a period of time.
The official report states that the defender suffered a problem by the end of the match, and thus was subjected to some medical examinations.
Therefore , the player has been diagnosed with a low-grade lesion of the rectus femoris muscle of the right thigh.
The expected recovery time for the 23-year-old is estimated for around 20 days, as mentioned by the report.
Demiral has been one of the players that were blamed for the elimination from the European competition, especially due to his clumsy challenge on Porto’s Medhi Taremi, which gifted the Portuguese side a penalty kick.
It remains to be seen whether two of the other center backs would be fit enough to start against Cagliari on Sunday.
If not, then the likes of Danilo and Alex Sandro could once again be deployed as emergency defenders.
