Cuti Romero hasn’t played a match for Tottenham Hotspur since the home loss for Chelsea in early December, and has been slowly rehabilitating an injured foot since that time. We are still waiting for his return to Tottenham’s first team squad, though he was apparently photographed in full team training, which was posted on Tottenham’s social media channels this morning.
That said, to absolutely nobody’s surprise, Romero was named to Argentina’s preliminary squad ahead of the upcoming international break, which starts the week of March 16. Argentina are playing two World Cup qualifiers against Uruguay on March 21 and at arch-rivals Brazil on March 25.
This is annoying, certainly. Both Romero and Giovani Lo Celso when he was still at Spurs seemed to always be willing to come back from injury to play for their national team, sometimes to their detriment. While I’m too lazy to look up the details, I can certainly remember them pushing to recover in time for international matches half a world away, only to pick up another knock or an injury while playing for Argentina causing them to lose even more time for Tottenham.
That said, this really does feel like one of those unfortunate coincidences. The good news this time is that Tottenham have a few matches upcoming BEFORE everyone disperses for the international break, including both legs of the Europa League Round of 16 against AZ Alkmaar, and Premier League games against Bournemouth and at Fulham. If Romero is available to play in a few of those matches, I’ll feel a little better about him jetting across the Atlantic during the break, since he could potentially use those games to increase his fitness. And there’s always the chance that he doesn’t make Argentina’s final squad for the break, though that feels unlikely.
Just as long as he doesn’t pick up another stupid injury.