Falcao is not ready to play just yet

by Guilherme Neto

Radamel Falcao in pre-season training session for AS Monaco

After tearing his ACL in his left knee back in January of 2014, Radamel Falcao embarked on an always extremely difficult journey of recovering from a very complicated injury. Because of that unfortunate incident, he naturally ended up missing last summer’s FIFA World Cup in Brazil and who knows how even further could Colombia have gone in the competition, had they been able to count with AS Monaco‘s highly prolific striker in the team.

It’s been roughly 6 months since Falcao got injured in his knee and even though he’s almost fully recovered by now, AS Monaco‘s new coach Leonardo Jardim, came to public to note that his star player is not ready to play just yet. The French club has already gone two friendlies against FC St-Veit and Atletico Junior, but they’ll their third pre-season fixture next Wednesday, when they take on Atlético Nacional from Colombia.

Leonardo Jardim: “Radamel Falcao is not yet on the required physical level to play in a football match. However, he’s already at the last stage of his injury recovery plan and he’ll be helping the team in games very soon…”, promised the Portuguese coach, who became AS Monaco‘s head coach at the end of last season.

After playing this 3rd friendly in American soil (in Miami), Monaco will start preparing their participation in the Emirates Cup pre-season tournament on August 2 and August 3, where they’ll be facing Valencia and Arsenal. The “Monegasques” kickoff their official campaign this season with a game against FC Lorient for the French League (“Ligue 1“), scheduled for August 10.

Sources: skysports.com / abola.pt / asm-fc.com