The absence of Lorenzo Mezzotero, the 18-year-old striker at Italian Serie B club Sampdoria, from the Azerbaijan senior national team’s training camp has been viewed from a different angle in the Italian sports press.
Fanat.az, citing Italian website “Diario del Web”, reports that the young forward’s withdrawal from the squad through injury was actually a precautionary measure by his club.
The injury Mezzotero sustained in his latest league match is not serious. Sampdoria’s management simply did not want to take any risks with the 1.90m-tall striker, having seen his recent rise: eight goals in five Primavera matches and his first senior goal against Virtus Entella.
The source says the Genoa club feared their young talent could aggravate his injury by making a long trip during the international break, and preferred to keep him at their training base to ensure he was fully fit for the next rounds of Serie B fixtures.
Kamil Khudiyev
This article was translated from Azerbaijani with the help of AI. Original in Azerbaijani
