Muscle problems for Morutan. The Romanian returns from the national team

Bad luck, jinx, misfortune, evil eye. Each of us gives the mocking fate the name he or she likes best, even more so after the news that spread through the fans late yesterday morning with the speed of a tsunami: Olimpiu Morutan excluded from his Romania's match against San Marino, valid for the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, due to a muscle strain. At the moment in which everything suggested that the number 80 would have definitively regained the role of central protagonist in Pisa's performances on the stage of the cadetteria, fate once again delivers him an unwelcome gift.

Almost a year after the unfortunate outcome of the MRI scan that confirmed the rupture of the Achilles tendon in his right leg, while he was in Turkey wearing the Ankaragucu jersey. However, let's try to blow away as much as possible the very dark clouds that gathered over Piazza dei Miracoli a second after the announcement by Romania coach Mircea Lucescu: Morutan suffered a muscle strain, but for the moment any major problems are ruled out. The decision not to include him in the squad for the match played yesterday evening - his teammates Rus and Marin instead regularly took part in the match at the foot of Mount Titano - was made purely as a precaution, precisely to protect the striker from more serious injuries following the serious stoppage he experienced a year ago.

And even from the company in via Battisti there is cautious confidence about Morutan's condition: the elf - who returned to Pisa during the night, together with his compatriots, taking advantage of the short journey that separates the Republic of San Marino from the Tower - will undergo all the instrumental tests of the case today. After a careful analysis of the muscular discomfort suffered during the final training session on Sunday, the medical staff, together with Pippo Inzaghi, will draw up the recovery table for the player. Currently his presence for the match in Cosenza next Saturday, when the championship will resume its run, is obviously in doubt.

After 263 minutes - peppered with a goal and an assist - accumulated on the field since returning to the group at the end of December, Morutan's path to full fitness must thus suffer a new, brief (let's keep our fingers crossed) hitch. If the minor severity of the injury is confirmed, Inzaghi and his collaborators will evaluate the Romanian day by day until his departure for Calabria. At the "San Vito-Marulla" however there will still be an important return: Stephen Moreo in fact he has definitively put behind him the muscular problem that prevented him from participating in the away match in Spezia, forcing him to play only the final part of the home match against Mantova. The number 32 is well and is a candidate to regain the starting shirt in the three-quarter line, alongside Matteo Tramoni in the offensive direction duties behind Alexander Lind.

MA