Lukaku, no to surgery: conservative therapy to speed up his return. The risks of this choice

To bring order to those disheveled thoughts requires a clarity that sometimes risks fading in the heat of the moment: and while there seems to be no light around, only that long tunnel—a hundred days or so— Romelu Lukaku is left pondering what to do and how to do it , to figure out when to return. There are no magic potions, nor is it possible to invoke miraculous solutions that can ease the torment: the timeframe for re-emerging from this fog is codified, three months could be enough, maybe four, or even something in between, but it will be necessary to follow instinct a little and the guidelines of specialists a lot.

To get his bearings, Lukaku spoke with Dr. Canonico, who heads Napoli's medical staff, and after he suffered the most painful "sentence" at the "Pineta Grande Hospital" ("a high-grade lesion of the rectus femoris in the left thigh... surgical consultation"), he immediately consulted him. And then he did it again on his own, reflecting, wallowing in doubt and bitterness: if fate stops playing against him, around twenty games will be gone (14-15 league games, 6 Champions League games), and the very human dream for anyone, in situations like this, is to take the shortest route, assuming it exists. Lukaku would like to avoid entering the operating room; he's not crazy about the idea of surgery, he hopes conservative treatment will work, and for now—and as we know, the night always brings (other) advice—we'll see. And the decision, clearly, isn't final, it can't be yet, because a prolonged reflection is now required, a dialogue with Napoli, if anything also with the doctors who have been by his side for years during his national team career, with anyone who can suggest an option, and above all with himself.

Because after feeling the signals from his body during Napoli-Olympiacos , and summarizing his feelings in a single phrase ("I felt him jump"), Lukaku has already projected himself into his new dimension. He's understood that he'll need a sufficiently long window to recover and re-emerge as a Big (Roma), and he's also understood that there's the possibility of being left out of the squad, both for the league and the Champions League, as it's of no use to anyone to include an injured player. But optimism sometimes has a therapeutic value, and Lukaku dreams of reducing his prognosis and playing earlier than the "protocols" suggest for those who have torn, and in that way, their rectus femoris.

His perfect summer, a full training camp (between Dimaro-Folgarida and Castel di Sangro), an enviable line for a center forward who has to carry that beastly physique: the line between happiness and despair, even on the pitch, is captured in a fragment of a friendly, in a ball generously recovered to restart, in the pain that appears as he "loads" his left foot, and in the grimaces and facial expressions that explain it all. Since Thursday, August 14th, around 6:30 PM, Lukaku has indulged in all sorts of reflections, because that Friday night optimism lasted the space of a sunset, and by dawn it was already another, awful, unbearable day: now, from the moment he decides how to proceed, he will perhaps need another hundred before he feels like Napoli's permanent center of gravity again. The suspicion, perhaps the fear, or even the dread of undergoing surgery clashes with the concern that conservative therapy won't have the desired effect, and that weeks might be wasted, ultimately having to turn around and give in to the surgeons—not the most pleasant desire, indeed the one currently discarded (almost) without any ifs, ands, or buts. But taking a few more hours makes sense...