It takes a particular kind of resilience to approach an international break with a positive spirit when your squad has required five surgical procedures across five Serie A matchdays. This is, improbably, the situation in which Juventus find themselves on the morning of Monday 22 September — and Luciano Spalletti, characteristically, has found a way to drain the absurdity of it with one perfect anecdote.
Ahead of the Atalanta match, he told his players at the last moment that he had decided to cancel the pre-match walk-through. “We decided not to go out onto the pitch for the session, because with everything that keeps happening, we said: ‘Let’s not even go down the stairs from the dressing room — better if we stay inside.'” It is the joke of a manager who has learned, across a season that has already tested every limit, to find the humour in misfortune before the misfortune finds him first.
Kolo Muani: Operated, Successful, Available for Cagliari
The fifth surgical procedure performed on a Juventus player in five matchdays was completed on Monday at the J-Medical by Dr Loris Pegoli, specialist in hand and wrist surgery. Kolo Muani fractured the proximal phalanx of his right fifth finger — the little finger — during the first half of Sunday’s Atalanta match after falling awkwardly. The club’s official statement confirms the osteosynthesis procedure was entirely successful and that the player will be regularly available. He can resume training within a couple of days — meaning the three-week international break provides exactly the recovery window required. He will be available for the Cagliari fixture on 11 October.
Spalletti’s Near-Miss — “It Was a Foul, He Gave Me a Whack”
In a week already defined by injury absurdity, Spalletti himself came close to adding his own name to the list. At the meeting of Serie A managers with Orsato’s referee team in Lissone on Monday, the Juventus manager slipped after greeting journalists — an involuntary nudge from someone pursuing a selfie sending him momentarily off-balance before he regained his footing. He laughed about it immediately: “It was a foul — he gave me a whack!” The Tuscan manager posing for photographs with everyone around him, smiling through the chaos that has defined the season’s opening month. It is, in its small way, the image of the week.
The Full Recovery Timeline — Who Returns When
The international break’s three weeks provide the opportunity for a partial resolution of the injury crisis — not complete, but meaningful. The players expected to return to availability are: Kolo Muani for Cagliari on 11 October; Cambiaso, targeting the same match after his ankle sprain; Cabal, depending on the recovery of his semimembranosus lesion. Boga and Ekhator are expected back in the first days of November — the November international break the realistic target for their competitive reintegration.
Those facing much longer absences will not return before the end of 2026 at the earliest, and for the others well into 2027. The full list of extended absentees: Yıldız (foot surgery, returns approximately the November international break); Grabara (anterior cruciate ligament rupture, season over); Thuram (knee chondroplasty, returns 2027); Locatelli (external meniscus suture, returns at the earliest January 2027).
Eleven players will depart on international duty during the break, leaving the Continassa with a skeleton crew — but a skeleton crew that has just beaten Atalanta 2-0 and enters the pause with ten points and a confidence that, given everything that has happened, feels like an achievement of the most extraordinary kind.
