Real Madrid’s French international midfielder Aurélien Tchouaméni was the victim of a fracture of the second metatarsal left foot during the clasico won by his team against Barcelona (2-1), the Spanish club said on Sunday.
Tchouaméni underwent medical examinations which revealed “a stress fracture” in this midfoot bone, Real Madrid wrote in a press releasewithout specifying the duration of its unavailability.
Six to eight weeks of absence expected
According to several Spanish media, it should be between six and eight weeks. This type of injury is often considered as a fatigue fracture due to the sequence of matches, which the former Monegasque, one of the most used players in Europe with already 16 matches played this season, recently denounced.
“Obviously, we play too many matches,” he regretted at a press conference before Netherlands-France in mid-October. “Organizations are put to the test and this results in injuries, so it’s up to the authorities to do something.”
But the authorities (Leagues, UEFA, Fifa) do not “necessarily ask us for our opinion”, so “we all have to come together and make a decision to make ourselves heard” he added.
“It’s going to be up to us, the players, to say something, to come together and bang our fists on the table because we don’t have the impression that things are going to get better, on the contrary it’s getting heavier,” continued the 23-year-old midfielder, who recently helped out as a central defender at Real to compensate for the absences of Militao, Alaba and Nacho.
“Obviously, we play too many matches”
Aurélien Tchouaméni played the entire clasico against Barcelona on Saturday at the Montjuic Olympic stadium, without giving any indication of any pain.
It was only later in the evening on Sunday that the fears of Madrid supporters were triggered by a photo posted on Instagram by the Frenchman undergoing an MRI scan. The ex-Bordeaux player joins in the Madrid infirmary the Belgian goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois and the Brazilian defender Eder Militao, who are both recovering from a ruptured cruciate ligament in his right knee, and the Spaniard Dani Ceballos suffering from a muscle injury.
He should miss Real’s next meetings in La Liga and the Champions League as well as the next meeting of the Blues and the matches on November 18 against Gibraltar and November 21 against Greece. His absence should offer more playing time to his compatriot Eduardo Camavinga in the Merengue midfield, where Tchouaméni is unbeatable, as much as with the Blues.