Cristiano Ronaldo out of Juventus’ clash against Barcelona due to COVID-19

Cristiano Ronaldo won’t feature in Juventus’ Champions League clash against Barcelona tonight after testing positive for COVID-19 for the third occasion, Goal.com reports.

Ronaldo initially tested positive for the coronavirus on international duty with Portugal and he failed to produce a negative result during a second round of testing earlier last week.

Still, the 35-year-old was in contention to face the Blaugrana, had he tested negative 24 hours before the contest. That has, however, not been the case with him yet to recover from the virus.

Hence, the Bianconeri will go into the group stage clash against Barcelona without their top-scorer from the previous two seasons while Ronaldo won’t be able to renew his rivalry with Lionel Messi on the pitch.

Ronaldo and Messi are undoubtedly the best players of the current generation and the duo have been hugely consistent over the past 12 years where they have won five and six Ballon d’Ors respectively.

Messi was looking forward to playing against Ronaldo for the first time since he left Real Madrid in 2018, but the wait has been extended. The duo could face each other in the final matchday on December 11.

Juventus and Barcelona have started their European campaigns with comfortable wins over Dynamo Kiev (2-0) and Ferencvaros (5-1) respectively.

Their league form has, however, been average. Both teams are winless in the past two domestic games and there is a sense of unpredictability for tonight’s contest.

Stats from Transfermarkt.com