FC Barcelona seem to have learned their lessons regarding injured and recovering players the hard way. At times, instead of taking into account the overall capability of the player in terms of returning to top-level football, some recoveries have been rushed. Ultimately, Barcelona have had to pay the consequences of those actions.
Frenkie de Jong’s case, for instance, is one that even Dutch coach Ronald Koeman pointed out. In that particular situation, the former Barcelona coach and legend tried to place the blame of De Jong’s injury onto the Catalan club and believed that the aggravation of his injury was their fault.
However, whether or not the blame was justified, the reality of the matter is that the club is being a lot more cautious with their players now. Gavi seems to be ‘flying’ in training already, but the club is holding him back from featuring for Barcelona again yet to ensure he returns at full capacity.
Another player whose recovery and adaptation seems to be taking some extra time is Wojciech Szczesny. The 34-year-old Polish goalkeeper is the newest player to join Barcelona this season as an emergency signing, but he is still not fully ready to take that final step it seems.
According to SPORT, the player is still being kept away from participating in the more intense training sessions and practice matches as well. Even the recent game against Barcelona Atletic was an occasion that he had to miss in order to focus more on other areas of his training.
For now, the goalkeeping coach and the Barcelona trainers are more focused on helping Szczesny recover his explosive movements. While they believe that he is still in good shape, the primary attention is currently being given to helping him regain his muscle tone, overall strength, and explosiveness in general to allow him to be agile in between the sticks.
According to his compatriot and Barcelona teammate, Robert Lewandowski, it should not take the goalkeeper much longer to adapt and be able to play, however:
“During his temporary retirement, he gained some freshness, and two weeks of training will be enough for him. He’s fresh and training calmly. I’m sure he will help the team many times.”
For now, the focus of the Polish goalkeeper will be to first make himself available for the training matches. He has taken part in five sessions so far with his fellow goalkeepers, but the intense parts of the training sessions are still something he must aim for before he can think of joining the team for their official matches.
