Juventus face a difficult trip to Bergamo to face Atalanta on Saturday, and there will be no Cristiano Ronaldo in the squad this weekend.
The 34-year-old superstar enjoyed a productive international break as he scored four goals on his way to helping Portugal secure their spot at EURO 2020.
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However, after being substituted against Lokomotiv Moscow and AC Milan prior to the break with his side needing to find a winning goal, the Portuguese international doesn’t even get the nod from Maurizio in his squad for the clash with Atalanta.
As seen in the Bianconeri’s official tweet below, Ronaldo is absent from the list as are Adrien Rabiot and Alex Sandro, although as noted by Goal Italy, there is a double boost for the reigning Serie A champions as Miralem Pjanic and Blaise Matuidi are included having been injury doubts themselves.
Sarri was keen to clear up the situation with Ronaldo prior to his squad announcement though, with Football Italia quoting him from his press conference with the media on Friday as he noted that Ronaldo isn’t right fitness wise still and suggested that he would be left out this weekend to allow him to prepare to face Atletico Madrid in the Champions League next week instead.
Considering Juventus have already booked their spot in the knockout stage of Europe’s premier competition but sit just a point above Inter in the Serie A table, it’s not quite clear how this particular strategy makes sense with their talisman.
Nevertheless, it’s surely not worth aggravating any possible injury issue that Ronaldo has, and so he will now have a few extra days to rest and continue to receive treatment with a view of being available on Tuesday night.
? SQUAD LIST ?The called-up Bianconeri players for #AtalantaJuve ???? pic.twitter.com/gXdPtxLTRB
— JuventusFC (@juventusfcen) November 22, 2019
