(Madrid) French striker Kylian Mbappé, who had a successful start to the season at Real Madrid, was stopped in his tracks by a muscle injury to his left thigh which will deprive him of several weeks of competition.
His exit, grimacing under the applause at the end of the Liga match on Tuesday against Alavés, immediately panicked the Spanish press. Is Mbappé injured? Will he be available on Sunday for the derby against Atlético Madrid?
The suspense lasted only one night, and that was enough time for sports broadcasts to debate what type of injury the Frenchman is suffering from or who should replace him in the starting eleven.
“Following the tests carried out today on our player Kylian Mbappé by the Real Madrid medical service, he has been diagnosed with an injury to the biceps femoris of his left leg,” the Spanish giant wrote in a statement on Wednesday, without specifying the duration of the absence of its new star.
According to the Iberian press, he could be unavailable for three weeks and will miss Sunday’s Madrid derby against Atlético Madrid in the league, as well as the trip to Lille in the Champions League on October 2.
The France team captain is also uncertain for the next international window with Les Bleus, who face Israel and Belgium in the Nations League on October 10 and 14.
This injury, which is recurrent in high-level sport and often associated with the repetition of high-intensity races, comes at the worst possible time for the Bondy player, who seemed to be gradually returning to his best level and integrating better and better into the Madrid team, as illustrated by his fifth goal in seven league games on Tuesday against Alavés (3-2) after a sublime one-two with Jude Bellingham.
Infernal cadence
The new Merengue number 9 had so far played his first nine matches, in all competitions, as a starter, only coming off three times with just a few minutes to go, which inevitably brings us back to the burning issue of professional football’s overloaded schedules.
The pace imposed on the big European clubs, with matches every three days and ever more packed competitions, has been widely criticised in recent weeks, notably by Carlo Ancelotti, who frequently has to deal with injuries to important players.
“We have looked for the problem, but it is not in our hands. It is the fault of a very demanding schedule. […] “If the managers do not start thinking about the players who get injured because they play too many games, we have a problem. We must reduce the number of games to have more attractive competitions,” the Italian coach had decided.
Other voices, including those of Rodri (Manchester City), himself the victim of a serious knee injury a few hours after his statements, or Jules Koundé (FC Barcelona), have been raised to say stop to this infernal pace, evoking the possibility of a strike.
“We see that there are more and more injuries due to lack of rest. […] We’ve been saying this for three or four years and no one is listening to us, the players, who are the main actors. There will indeed come a time when we will go on strike. It’s the only way we will have to be heard,” Koundé believes.
Even if not serious, the injury of Kylian Mbappé, a superstar of world football and an influential figure in the world of sport, will provide another element to the argument of Fifpro, the International Federation of Football Unions, which is preparing to file a second complaint with the European Commission on competition law on October 14.