Though Fiorentina have said little about the injury, the worst is being feared after a tackle from behind forced Giuseppe Rossi from Sunday’s 1-0 over visiting Livorno. Eight months into a comeback from injuries that cost Serie A’s leading scorer nearly two years of action, Rossi now awaits Monday tests to find out if there is any new damage to his surgically repaired right knee.
The injury came in the 71st minute when Rossi, attempting to play the ball, was tackled from behind by Livorno defender Leandro Rinaudo, who made contact with the 26-year-old’s knee. Rossi immediately went down, and although he left the field under his own power, the New Jersey-born attacker winced whenever his stride forced him to shift weight onto his right leg.
After the game, Fiorentina coach Vincenzo Montella was left bemoaning the nature of what appeared to be a purposeful foul. From Reuters:
“We are all worried,” the Fiorentina coach, Vicenzo Montella, told reporters. “It appeared to be an intentional foul. I don’t think he wanted to injure the player but he certainly wanted to stop him.
“I expected that Rinaudo would have apologised which you usually do when you commit that sort of foul.”
After returning in May from injuries that had sidelined him since the beginning of the 2011-12 season, Rossi made an unexpectedly quick impact at Fiorentina, a club that took the chance of buying the still-injured player in last January’s transfer window. Through 17 rounds this season, Rossi’s 14 goals led Serie A, with the former Manchester United and Villarreal attacker carrying the team’s scoring load in the absence of an injured Mario Gomez.
The rebound was so pronounced that Rossi had worked his way back into the picture for World Cup 2014, with Italian national team head coach Cesare Prandelli discussing a potential Rossi-Mario Balotelli partnership for this summer’s tournament in Brazil. Whereas injuries kept Rossi from playing in Euro 2012, the former Parma trainee was in line to join the Azzurri this summer, having received his first post-injury recall in November.
All that is on hold after Sunday, however. Though any diagnosis ahead of Monday’s tests is speculation, fans can’t help but wonder if they’ve seen this before.
