Gladbach's Lazaro dismisses "Bild" report of injury as "fake news"
By Peter Weis @PeterVicey
Borussia Mönchengladbach's Valentino Lazaro took to Instagram himself to deny reports that he's dealing with a serious injury.
Valentino Lazaro. | Photo: Borussia Mönchengladbach |
Those catching Thursday's fixture could have been forgiven for thinking that they were watching some version of a Bundesliga All-star game. Apart from striker Adrian Gribic and keeper Alexander Schlager, nine of the starting XI were Bundesliga players.
Sasa Kalajdzic, Xaver Schlager, Stefan Ilsanker, Florian Grillitsch, Christoph Baumgartner, David Alaba, Philipp Lienhart, and Stefan Lainer all started while Marcel Sabitzer, Alessandro Schöpf, Michael Gregoritsch, Karim Onisiwo, and Pavo Pervan all stood ready on the bench.
One player conspicuously absent was Gladbach attacker Valentino Lazaro, reported by Austria's Trioler Tageszeitung as struggling with a thigh injury. Germany's main tabloid "Bild" went one step further and said that Lazaro had incurred a rather serious injury that would threaten his fitness back in the Bundesliga.
In a somewhat unusual move, the 25-year-old took a page from Angelino's playbook and refuted Bild's report on his own social media account. Lazaro didn't specify whether he was fully fit or if the severity of the injury was misrepresented. The Bundesligist simply labeled the information "fake news".
Update: auf Instagram dementiert Lazaro den Bericht der BILD und betitelt diese als „Fake News“! Absofort werde ich keine BILD Artikel mehr teilen oder als Infoquelle angeben! Genug ist genug. #KeineBILDmehr pic.twitter.com/jWzM1VfyL1
— denizyok9 (@denizyok9) March 26, 2021