Napoli striker Gonzalo Higuain is a doubt for their Serie A trip to strugglers Verona today after a demanding international break.
“Higuain played in the heat, made a long journey and he seemed very tired,” Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri said in his pre-match news conference yesterday.
“We’ll see in training if he has been able to recover and hopefully tomorrow (today) he’ll be in decent condition.”
Fourth-place Napoli can ill afford to be without Higuain, who started both of Argentina’s World Cup qualifiers – against Brazil and Colombia – having already lost forwards Dries Mertens and Manolo Gabbiadini to injury during the international break.
“It does penalise teams who have a lot of international players, as they travel all over the world for often pointless matches,” Sarri said.
“These players need training sessions more than rest.”