The omission of Diogo Jota from the matchday squad for Portugal’s 3-0 friendly victory over Qatar, as clear from BBC Sport’s lineup, would appear to confirm an earlier report regarding a muscle injury affecting the Liverpool star.
Sapo Desporto had previously reported the injury concern, with the publication correctly predicting that the 24-year-old and fellow international teammate, Ruben Neves, could miss the tie.
With Liverpool’s upcoming meeting with Watford only six days away, it’s certainly grounds for concern as far as Jurgen Klopp will be concerned.
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Depending on the severity of the issue in question, the former Wolves star could be out of action for as many as several weeks.
It’s the last bit of bad news Klopp needs, especially given that he’s potentially already set to be without both Alisson Becker and Fabinho due to the placement of Brazil’s final international fixture against Uruguay a day before our return to domestic action.
We can only hope that the concern in question wasn’t massively severe – certainly, we’d doubt the player would remain with Portugal’s squad if it were.
We’ll be keeping an eye out for any further updates on the matter.
There’s far too much international football, and players are being overplayed and not getting a proper rest during the summer.
We need to go back to world cup and Euro championship qualifying groups being made up of 4 teams, so there are three international matches a season.
Also, with the world cup and euros being every four years, the summers in between must be free of international football to give the players a proper rest every other summer.