Barca captain Carles Puyol still not ready to play


Carles Puyol will be joining the rest of the squad in training this week if there are no setbacks, but at the moment it’s still not that clear when the defender will be playing in a competitive match.

Just a few weeks ago Andoni Zubizarreta and Gerardo Martino thought the league break we are now having due to national team commitments would be the ideal time in which the captain would re-join the squad. It now seems that the reality is that Puyol might take considerable more time than at first thought to get back into the swing of things.

Both the coaching staff and doctors do not want to rush the Catalan, who has lived through a nightmare ordeal over these past two seasons. This Sunday marks six months after Carles Puyol underwent an arthroscopy on his right knee. Since then, he hasn’t returned to play and has suffered a few complications such as the removal of a Baker’s cyst.

Puyol is recovering well but he club do not want to rush his return and it’ll take slightly longer than expected. At first the club thought he should be ready to join the rest of the team in the preseason. That was then put off until early September and he was penciled in to reappear against Sevilla this weekend. That was then postponed for another week with the Rayo Vallecano game in mind but now it finally seems the captain will not return before the end of the month for the game against Almeria, in three weeks time.

Training today

However, it is expected that Puyol will train with the squad this morning, taking advantage of the return of all Barca’s internationals, though he won’t complete the session at the same level as the rest of the team as the player is following a specific rehabilitation plan on his knee.

The coaching staff are also evaluating the opportunity of including him in the squad for the next few games even though he’s not ready to play. This would be the ideal morale boost for the player and next week Carles Puyol could be travelling to Madrid as Barca meets Rayo Vallecano away.

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My name's Aaron and I'm a great Barça fan. I like to tell it like it is and if there is something I don't like about the club or something that needs addressing, you'll know!

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  1. Información Bitacoras.com

    Valora en Bitacoras.com: Barcelona captain Carles Puyol has suffered a slight setback which rules him out for the time being. The Catalan was penciled in for the game against Sevilla at the weekend but it now seems unlikely. The club will name him in..…