The lack of cash guarantees at right-back, as well as the confidence the coach has in him because he is a home-grown player, gave the 30-year-old footballer an extra lease of life when his Barça career seemed exhausted. The director of football, Mateu Alemany, was not particularly in favor of offering him the renewal, but with the insistence of Xavi and the intermediation of the sports vice-president Rafa Yuste, an agreement was reached between the parties that involved extending one more season their bond
Now, the versatile player still has a month of October in which he can justify the confidence of the coach and make merits to start accumulating arguments for a new renewal that will have to be won with his performance on the grass. The injuries of Jules Kounde – the player who had given the most benefits in this position despite wanting to play as a central player –, Ronald Araujo and Héctor Bellerín open the door to the starting position for Sergi Roberto. But the Reusense does not enjoy the physical fullness he would like after a last physical setback, in this case to the Achilles tendon of both legs, as ARA has learned.
The footballer was medically discharged before visiting Mallorca on Saturday and played the last ten minutes of the match in place of Alejandro Balde, an emergency patch at right back. The footballer’s sensations after playing this short game were “good” and confirm the work done in the last few days, in which he had done specific work to strengthen the tendons: the last muscle area that gives him strength and that it had prevented him from playing the last three games, since he began to notice discomfort on September 13 against Viktoria Plzen at Camp Nou.
An ordeal the last two seasons
All in all, Sergi Roberto is available to start this Tuesday against Inter Milan if Xavi deems it appropriate. “He is fine and at the disposal of the technicians”, they explain to Sant Joan Despí, although the problems with the Achilles tendons have made it difficult to prepare a player who had started with good physical parameters the season after participating only in twelve games during the whole of last year.
In fact, the discomforts he has suffered recently and which mean that his ownership remains subject to the asterisk are explained by the inactivity caused by the previous ordeal with the injuries he has had. He has been plagued by injuries the last two seasons and this has resulted in eighty missed games between the 2020-21 season and the current one.
In December of last year he was operated on by the specialist Lasse Lempainen for an injury to the rectus femoris of the right thigh. He is the same doctor who recently operated on Ronald Araujo and who had previously operated on Ousmane Dembélé twice. The player from Reus decided to go through the operating room, already advised by Dr. Ricard Pruna and after an ordeal that had started the previous season: it was the 2020-21 course when the problems started in the rectus femoris of the right thigh (November 2020 ), with relapse included (January 2021) and with the coronavirus in the middle.
All this is already water, but the forced inactivity has ended up doing a bad trick to a footballer whose ability to deploy and travel is one of his virtues. Now a new renewal is being played at Barça.
