Marko Pjaca to miss remainder of season with cruciate tear

Just when it seemed that things couldn’t get worse for Marko Pjaca, things find a way. Tests today confirmed that the star-crossed winger tore a cruciate ligament in his left knee during training. It’s nearly 2 years to the day since he tore the right one, derailing his once-promising career.

While his absence won’t really hurt Fiorentina all that much—he’s dropped behind Gerson and Kevin Mirallas in the pecking order—it’s hard not to feel bad for the player, who will spend the next 4-6 months rehabbing rather than playing.

With a goal and an assist through 19 appearances, Pjaca surely knows that he’s fallen well short of expectations, both the fans’ and his own. His decision to fight for a spot in Florence rather than join Genoa, though, showed character, and many of us were holding onto the hope that he’d flip the switch for these last dozen games and give Stefano Pioli another lethal option.

Instead, he’ll shut it down until next year. While he’s still young, he’ll be 24 when next year begins; no longer a bright young thing, you have to think that Juventus, which paid €23 million to Dinamo Zagreb for him in 2016, will try to cut their losses soon, even though his contract with them runs until 2021.

We’re convinced that there’s still a quality player yearning to break out in him; don’t forget that he played some minutes for World Cup runners-up Croatia this summer. But between the injuries and the apparent loss of confidence, he needs to get himself back on the pitch and just play some minutes to get himself back. That clearly won’t be with Fiorentina, but we wish him luck wherever his journey takes him, as his next good break will be his first in forever.