Good news in Casteldebole: Bologna embraces Adama Soumaoro again, almost a year after the terrible knee injury: it was May 4th, when in Empoli the Franco-Malian central defender, in the 38th minute, suffered a rupture of the patellar tendon right knee. Yesterday the player returned to the pitch, not yet with the group. Differentiated training for the defender, whose contract expires on 30 June, for whom Thiago Motta has repeatedly expressed words of esteem, hoping for a renewal: both are expiring and the feeling is that the hope of an extension for the Frenchman is linked to coach’s match. There will still be time for this. With a month to go until the end of the season, for Soumaoro there is first and foremost the hope of being able to return to group training in time for a call-up in view of the very last days of the championship and of being part of the probable celebration for the return to Europe: it will depend from the responses of his body now that he has started running and training with the ball again. Certainly, if he can and has the opportunity, Thiago will not forget about him. Meanwhile, Soumaoro, 32 years old in June, has returned to breathe the air of the pitch and the locker room, after a year of suffering.
Joshua Zirkzee, however, trained regularly in the group: a sigh of relief for the Dutch striker, who came out 20 minutes from the end of the match at the Olimpico and with ice on his right thigh, the same one to which he had suffered a muscle injury against Inter. The striker, who against Roma found the goal (with the addition of an assist) that he had been missing since March 3 and who on Sunday, against Udinese, will try to break the deadlock at the Dall’Ara, where he doesn’t intend to miss the end of the season he has been missing the net since November 27th. There are some aches and pains, but they are manageable and Zirkzee does not intend to back down in the highlight of the season.
Jens Odgaard’s recovery, however, was difficult. The Dane suffered a muscle strain in his right rectus femoris on the eve of Frosinone, but his recovery time is taking longer than the two weeks initially planned. Ogaard’s return to the Udinese squad is at risk: yesterday too, in fact, the attacker worked separately and the medical and technical staff, barring any surprises, seem oriented towards not taking further risks and postponing the return to next week in the footballer’s group.
Marcello Giordano
