Inter Milan’s Hakan Çalhanoglu to miss match against Roma due to injury

Inter Milan will be without one of their most important players when they face AS Roma on September 19. Hakan Çalhanoglu, the 32-year-old Turkish midfielder who has been central to Inter’s strong start to the campaign, has been ruled out with a right adductor muscle strain. The timing could hardly be worse. Both Inter and Roma sit level at the top of the Serie A table with 12 points apiece from their first four matches, making this effectively a first-place showdown without one of the league’s most influential midfielders available. What happened and what we know Çalhanoglu was a late scratch from Inter’s matchday squad for their September 14 fixture against Udinese. That match turned into something of a spectacle, with Inter pulling off a 5-3 comeback victory, but the Turkish international watched from the sidelines. Medical tests conducted the following day at the Humanitas Clinical Institute in Rozzano confirmed the diagnosis: a muscle strain in his right adductor. Inter’s medical staff has projected a return after the international break, penciling in early October as a realistic timeline for his comeback. Inter also disclosed that defender John Stones picked up a separate musc...