Tragedy for Quagliarella

Juventus and Italy striker Fabio Quagliarella’s season is over after tests today revealed he has torn a cruciate knee ligament.

The 27-year-old was stretchered off early during yesterday’s humbling 4-1 home defeat to Parma that left Juve eight points off the top of the Serie A table in fifth.

And they suffered a further blow with the news that Quagliarella’s cruciate ligament has been torn, meaning he faces four to six months on the sidelines.

Juve have moved to replace Quagliarella with veteran former Italy forward Luca Toni, according to Italian press reports.

Toni is due to undergo a medical this afternoon before the official announcement of his signing.

The 33-year-old FIFA World Cup™ winner has scored three goals in 16 games for Genoa this season.

Simply put, this is awful news for both Juventus, Italy, and the player himself. Quagliarella was in the midst of what may have been his best ever season as a player. He’s at a big club, was scoring many goals, and was finally adding consistency to his usual brilliance. He has 9 goals for the season, tied with the likes of Eto, Ibrahimovic and Borriello, and was on track to get just below 20 for the season. He was massive for Juventus, and his injury will come as a massive blow.

Prandelli must be frustrated as well. Quagliarella was surely in the midst of playing himself into contention for gli azzurri, really staking out a claim to be the focal point of the 4-2-3-1 attack. Unfortunately, he’ll be out until May at the earliest, and such serious injuries coincide with unpredictable recoveries. Some players could recover just fine and return to their pre-injury form, whilst others are never quite the same since. It seems that there are more of the latter than the former, sadly- Eduardo of Arsenal and Del Piero himself spring to mind.

One final aspect to keep an eye on here is Luca Toni. Juve have quickly moved to bring him in from Genoa, and given Prandelli’s idea of a meritocracy, he could be called up in the future should he do for Juve what Quagliarella himself had done until this past weekend.

Here’s to a speedy and full recovery.