Real Madrid and the FIFA Virus

There's a disturbingly strange case surrounding Real Madrid every time the international friendlies or the qualifying games make surface. Not only haven't we, ever, emerged unscathed from these pointless games, but we are also the team that gets hit the most almost every time. Other teams don't seem to suffer that much because their injured players aren't of James or Ramos' caliber, and when they get injured, their teams don't notice a difference without them. Now Modric and Benzema have joined the list of the walking wounded and the list could still expand:

Danilo
Carvajal
Ramos
Modric
Benzema
James
Pepe

That's half of our first team sidelined with injury. And not your average players. Some of these are the best in the world in their position. We have the squad to win everything, but honestly, if half of them is usually out, how can we win anything at all, especially when other teams almost always emerge unscathed with no injury to their key players? I can't even remember the last time our treatment room was empty. There's always one or many walking in the shadows of the Bernabeu.

City suffer more than us tbh. Bayern always get their fair share of injuries too

Tbh this is the only season where most of our players seem to be getting injured. It's probably due to intensity change wrt the training regimen

Bayern can still cope without Ribéry. In fact, they're better off without him, Costa will surely bench the latter, if he hasn't already. They've got only Gotze, Benatia and Badstuber out. They're much better than us injury-wise. City though, I agree, are a mess and their most influential player and the best striker in EPL has just picked another injury.

What makes our case unique though is the fact that the players that make our backbone are injured. We haven't been able to field our strongest XI since quite some time now and if this continues, it'll inevitably affect our chances of winning silverware.

well, aguero always gets injured int'l break or no int'l break. if he didn't get it this week, it would still have happened sometime. the guy's very injury prone. as for us, i'm trying to take solace in the situation and hope that all these injuries now if treated and handled well, could mean we avoid knocks from February going forward. i'd rather our share of injuries comes at this stage with the league still being in its early stages than later.

besides ramos, benzema and maybe danilo (not too sure about him as i didn't follow his career before he joined us), those other players injured have either had a history of knocks/ injuries (james, pepe, carvajal) or in the case of modric, had a big injury issues last season. i expected that at some point in the season, james, pepe, carvajal and luka would get something of an injury lay off ....my hope is such layoff doesn't continue again in the latter part of the season

Modric is set to miss league matches against Levante, Celta and PSG...and it's still unknown whether he'll be fit for Las Palmas on 31st October.

It's OK. I'm confident we can beat PSG without Modric and even if we don't we'll qualify. We need him against Barca though

I think we need him less against Barca than PSG. Barca's midfield is hardly scary and we should be fine with Kovacic in his place. PSG on the other hand, their strength is their midfield and we will need Modric then but I am confident we can beat both teams without Modric. Unlike last year we have an adequate replacement this time and aren't playing players out of position to fill in for him

Still, win or lose, we have to think about ways to prevent our guys from getting injured. They're falling like leaves in windy autumn nights.

Modric is too fragile, last year's injury wasn't due to fatigue issues, i think it will be Casemiro alongside Kroos and Kovacic.

Nick predicted this way back in July or August saying with the type of injury he had and his age, we were bound to have his injuries continue. His statement was he wasn't at the age when we needed to think of a replacement, but we also would not be able to count on him as a consistent starter.  

Nick.

looking for excuses to get a new mid already? typical madrid fan , now none of our player are allowed to be injured.

Who are you referring to? Nick made those statements that we needed mid help (in addition to Casemiro) before we got Kova. I don't see anyone saying we need mid help, just that missing Modric isn't great. He has been our best mid thus far

chad4401 wrote:looking for excuses to get a new mid already? typical madrid fan , now none of our player are allowed to be injured.

You just can't help yourself, can you? You always try your best to come across as condescending and disrespectful all while contributing between little to none to the actual conversation. Next time, if you think you have nothing to offer just simply refrain yourself from commenting.

The Demon of Carthage wrote:

chad4401 wrote:looking for excuses to get a new mid already? typical madrid fan , now none of our player are allowed to be injured.

You just can't help yourself, can you? You always try your best to come across as condescending and disrespectful all while contributing between little to none to the actual conversation. Next time, if you think you have nothing to offer just simply refrain yourself from commenting.

or you can stfu and pay no attention?

i give it around feb before you lot are asking for modric and kroos heads, kroos hate is already gaining steam .

I mean, if Modric is injury prone and it is starting to look like it, it would be in the club's best interest to have an adequate (or even equal) replacement ready. If Kovacic isn't that player then the club is gonna have to look for another.

My personal take is that Kovacic is more than adequate but I don't run the affairs of the club.

Kovacic is here, he has the tools, he just needs to put it all together.

Is there anyone here saying we need midfield help?

james is injury prone as well, but since he scores golazo lets gloss over it and focus attention on modric cause he older , too many wanna be experts....

no one but you is making this focus on modric. Bill made a comment about something i said months ago, nothing wrong with day. Modric had no back up until kovacic got here.

As for James, we have always had Isco around so he bailed us out a lot.

If I look through our line-up, I see a need for a 2nd LB and that's all unless we have injuries to both players for a given position are injured at same time. There are complaints about quality of forward reserves, but can we reasonably expect anyone better to have to play behind Ronaldo, Bale, Benz, James and Isco?

Look at all the injuries we have and yet the injuries haven't really hurt us adversely.

I just don't get this comment about someone here suggesting we need midfield help.

im saying injuries happen regardless of how old a player is.

futbol_bill wrote:If I look through our line-up, I see a need for a 2nd LB and that's all unless we have injuries to both players for a given position are injured at same time. There are complaints about quality of forward reserves, but can we reasonably expect anyone better to have to play behind Ronaldo, Bale, Benz, James and Isco?

Look at all the injuries we have and yet the injuries haven't really hurt us adversely.

I just don't get this comment about someone here suggesting we need midfield help.

Nobody said we need a midfield help. But we need to find a way to prevent having so many injuries. Modric is the best in the world in his position and he's not that old. He had a couple of bad injuries last season and another minor one this season, two of which surprisingly enough during the international break.

If I remember correctly, what Nick was talking about was that we didn't need another top midfielder, like Pogba, but we needed someone who could complement what we already had in Kroos and Modric and that both of them should be rotated to stop from being burnt out and Modric likely to not be at the end of his injury problems. Plus having adequate reinforcements would enable us to play three CBs on occasion. Casemiro and Kovacic have clearly demonstrated that Nick was right.

(note - at this point in time neither James nor Isco can be considered CBs, they are definitely part of the forward configuration and strictly AMs).

The midfield depth is fine. where we suck at? LB, we only have marcelo, and the forwards spot. Jese, Cheryshev, Vasquez... super weak/under utilized. they need to turn up

Injuries do happen all the time, there isn't much that can be done to prevent them, other than by rotation, limit those that occur from overwork and fatigue.

Back to Modric, his injury last season was severe and it is highly predicable that new related injuries will happen, plus his age (+30) is a factor.

The reason why most big clubs essentially try to have two for every position and have rotation is what is done to try to prevent detrimental effects from injuries. That also why Carlo failed and Benitez was hired, to use the entire squad.

According to Carlo we lost the last two seasons because of injuries to Jese and Modric, yet the real cause was burnt out players and a whole bench that wasn't given a reasonable attempt to be integrated into team.