Real Madrid’s injury luck can’t get worse than this
By Ben Sundock
On Tuesday, Real Madrid announced the extent of Luka Modric’s injury while he was with the Croatian national team over the October international break. In the same match Modric went down, Gareth Bale suffered an injury as well. Can Madrid’s injury luck get any worse?
With El Clasico quickly approaching – assuming it is not going to be cancelled due to widespread protests in Catalonia – manager Zinedine Zidane received some frustrating news on Tuesday. As Kevin Parvizi wrote, Modric and Bale both returned to the Ciudad de Real Madrid with knocks.
Bale and Modric captained Wales and Croatia to a 1-1 draw in Cardiff on Sunday and will likely miss out on the trip to Mallorca this weekend as Los Blancos return to La Liga play.
Luka Modric’s injury isn’t a cause for concern long-term as it is being classified as a “contusion to his right quadriceps,” but with an important trip to Istanbul to face Galatasaray in the Champions League less than a week away, and a trip to Barcelona as well, being without the Ballon d’Or winner will be tough to overcome.
Gareth Bale, on the other hand, was just minutes away from making it through the break unscathed, but was forced off with a calf problem midway through the second half.
After watching two Real Madrid players go down with injuries in the same match on international break, I thought to myself, is the club cursed right now? And how have this many players been injured within two months?
Modric has already been sidelined for a couple matches this season with an injury and we have seen a long list of key players miss matches with Nacho Fernandez and Marco Asensio out for the majority of the season with serious knee injuries.
Ferland Mendy has already been hurt on two different occasions and we have yet to see Brahim Diaz in the preseason or competitive campaign.
Real Madrid leads La Liga in injuries thus far and likely rank in the top five in Europe. Despite the long list of injured that seems to never stop growing, Zidane has handled the situations nicely and it is clear that fringe players like Fede Valverde and Alvaro Odriozola are making the most of their appearances.
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It really is hard to believe that injuries seem to hit Real Madrid at every turn. Nonetheless, Los Blancos sit atop the league table and have a very good chance of qualifying for the knockout round of the Champions League.