Angel Di Maria and Federico Chiesa are still in contention for the right to play in Juventus’ Europa League round of 16 second leg against Freiburg despite injury concerns.
Di Maria appeared to be suffering from a left thigh injury late in last Thursday’s 1-0 first leg win, where he had previously scored the winning goal and subsequently missed out on Juventus’ 4-2 victory over Sampdoria in Serie A on Sunday.
Chiesa came on in the 67th minute against Freiburg but suffered an injury to his right knee, although the club confirmed that it was not a ligament capsule injury.
Bianconeri head coach Massimiliano Allegri is hopeful the pair will play some part in the second leg, though he admitted they won’t be ready to start.
“It’s very unlikely they’ll be there from the start as we only found them this morning, but they could be useful during the match,” Allegri told reporters.
“Tomorrow morning I will evaluate Chiesa and Di Maria and I will be able to decide on the starting lineup.
“Unfortunately, Di Maria got this injury after the first match against Freiburg and he had to miss a lot of training.
“Today the test went well, it doesn’t mean he has many minutes in his legs, but there is a risk that we could lose him for 40 days, given that this is exactly what happened in September.
“Tomorrow is important, but we still have a lot of games to play this season.”
Di Maria has scored eight goals in all competitions, providing four assists in Serie A this season, while Chiesa has provided three assists in the league with one goal.
Allegri: “We have to think about how to score goals because Freiburg is a difficult team in different situations. We must not make mistakes, stay organized and focused for 100 minutes.”#SCFJUV
— Juventus (@juventusfcen) March 15, 2023
Allegri said that striker Dusan Vlahovic is completely healthy and ready to play, although he refused to take him into the starting lineup along with Moise Keane.
Vlahovic hasn’t scored in his last six matches since scoring against Nantes in the Europa League on 16 February.
“Dusan Vlahovic was very sad that he had not scored lately, but physically he is fine. I am calm and confident that he will return to the standings soon, ”Allegri added.
“We want to score here because just trying to defend at 0-0 is not a good idea. Freiburg are good at standard games, we need to be very organized and focused for the entire 100 minutes.”
