In March, Italian club Juventus was announced as MLS’ opponent for the league’s annual All-Star Game set for August 1 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Since then, it has made a fairly expensive and important signing that you may be familiar with now.
Unfortunately, if you were hoping to see Cristiano Ronaldo at the Benz in a few weeks, you might be out of luck. That’s based off a report from AS.com, who confirmed the news with Juventus on Tuesday.
Juve today confirmed that despite joining the squad for pre-season on July 30, Cristiano won’t be involved in the US tour. The decision was made after a lengthy meeting with head coach Allegri and back room staff who later confirmed that there were no contractual obligations for their new star player to participate in the International Champions Cup games.
It would have been nice to see (and would have given MLS a nice boost for its premier summer event), but in the end, the risk of its star man getting injured in preseason exhibition matches wasn’t worth it. It’s possible that he won’t be the only big name that won’t be a part of Juve’s squad as Paulo Dybala has been linked to Liverpool in recent days, although those talks appear to be fading.
The 2018 MLS All-Star Game is set for August 1 at 7:30pm on FS1.