During his press conference last week, Massimiliano Allegri stated that Rafael Leao should not leave AC Milan this week for international duty, and that has been granted.
In a World Cup year, players want to represent their country whenever and wherever they can. However, there are also circumstances that require you to be smart, and injuries are one of those cases.
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Indeed, Leao has been struggling with a leg issue throughout this season and before the Torino game, Allegri admitted that it had flared up again. In fact, he stated that he should not be on the field next until the Napoli game, to actually allow him to recover.
Staying in Milano
Now, the Portuguese National Team have agreed, and as Calciomercato.com relays, the winger has officially been removed from the latest call-ups. He also will not need to travel to Portugal to have medical tests there.
As a result, the medical staff at Milanello and Allegri will be able to monitor him over the next two weeks and create a specific plan to get him back to his best with minimal strain.
Of course, the Portuguese has been out of training since last Friday, so it remains to be seen when he will return to the field, especially with the team now off for a few days.
Rafa is now officially EXTREMELY injury-prone. I wonder if he will EVER recover or if his career will be effectively over (or very limited, as in, a shadow of his former self). This ENTIRE season except for the first 15 minutes of the very first game against Bari, were marred by injury. This is almost unheard of, for a player this young. If the accumulation of injuries permanently compromise his bursts of speed, which are his biggest asset, he will be left with nothing, like we’ve seen with how ineffective he’s been, without his speed. He is still a talented player and has still bagged 10 seasonal goals and 2 assists, but this is clearly not the previous Leão.
Milan’s unreasonable short roster, which made Allegri resort to fielding Leão repeatedly without ever having the time to fully heal, may very well have permanently ruined this player.
This is a real shame, and the fault of the managers/administrators who trimmed the roster too much, in search of savings and profits. Sure, the roster was bloated before and we needed to get rid of the dead wood, but they went too far, and we ended up with the shortest Serie A roster, which was then decimated by injury. We were basically left with 5 forwards, all five with injury issues. Had we kept Abraham and Jovic, maybe this aggravation of Leão’s successive injuries would not have happened.
Not to forget, without this injury crisis and lack of options up front, maybe the 6 points we have behind Inter would not have been dropped, and we’d be in first place and in control of the Scudetto race.
That’s another example of the managers being penny wise and pound foolish. In search of savings, they tank the team athletically, and profits then diminish, by not having trophies, and by players having devalued market value due to injuries and lack of visibility due to the athletic damage to them and to the team as a whole.
Even with only one competition, the size of the first team’s roster is ridiculously small, so that we have no depth, and we are subject to dropped points because of injuries to the few players we have at our disposition.
Stupid, so stupid! The incompetence of our managers is historical.
All I say, Paolo Maldini needs to be brought back as a Director again to bring decent players. We’re full of Nkunku’s, Estupiñans and Gimenezes that have Milan on the ropes. Bad players that are dumped from other teams arrive at Milan. Milan is no longer a top class team. This is Leao’s worst season. He’s not a bad player. I hope he recovers soon.