The Champions league is back again and we will be witnessing some interesting clashes across Europe in the next 48 hours or thereabout. However, there are some hovering questions over some teams ahead of their encounters, one of such questions being whether the Portuguese Captain Christiano Ronaldo will feature for Juventus in their Champions league clash against Diego Simeone's highly defensive Athletico Madrid Side. Few weeks ago before the international break that saw players travel to their respective national sides to represent their countries in the various continental qualifying games or friendlies, we witnessed a mild drama between the Juve Boss Maurizio Sarri and Ronaldo. We saw the Star boy substituted twice in a row and the second got the media buzzing. What even makes it more funny is the fact that during those substitutions, Juventus are always in need of a win, and after Ronaldo is replaced, the Old ladies end up getting the winning goal. The fact that these occurred consecutively have made many Ronaldo fans not to criticise the decision of the Old Ladies gaffer. The second replacement which occurred in their game against AC Milan saw the Portuguese captain coming out of the pitch irritated, as he head straight into the tunnel and will later leave the stadium before the final whistle. The former Chelsea and Napoli boss had defended his action which ofcourse was fruitful for Juventus to get both wins. Addressing the media after that drama, Sarri said he substituted Ronaldo because he noticed the Portuguese captain was having a slight injury which limited his impact in Juventus' attack.
For him, he was doing the best for the team by trying to protect the player ahead of a bigger clash, after all, no coach will wanna have a Ronaldo-less squad in the Champions league. With the Five-time Ballon d'or winner having featured for Portugal in their Euro-2020 matches and performing quite well, Sarri may have no excuse not to play him against Athletico Madrid. The Coach have said that Ronaldo has been evaluated and has trained with the Bianconeri, so there the possibility of Ronaldo not featuring against his old Spanish foes is slim. You will recall that Ronaldo wasn't featured in Juve's weekend clash against Athlanta which saw the defending champions defeat their opponents 3-1. Having scored a whooping 25 goals against Athletico Madrid so far in his career, he remains a major threat to Diego Simeone's side and his absence will be a huge relief for the Spanish side on Tuesday. Asked few days back ahead of Tuesday's champions league match, Sarri was optimistic about the Portuguese captain being featured, but not without a reservation of fear. "Yesterday he did the training sessions with his team-mates. He seems to be growing [stronger]. We will evaluate it between today and tomorrow to see if we have solved it, but the fact that yesterday he did all the training with his team-mates is very positive. I think and hope there will be no repercussions." Though Juventus have already qualified for the round of 16, they will be looking forward to top Group D if they can secure a win against Athletico today.
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