The plague of injuries at Real Madrid continues. And what’s even more alarming is that most of these afflictions affect the knees, and more specifically the anterior cruciate ligament, one of the most feared diseases in sports.

Last to fall, David Alaba. The gesture of the Austrian defender of Real Madrid after a terrible twist of his left knee froze his teammates and the entire Santiago Bernabeu. Just two hours later, the club confirmed the worst omen: Alaba was diagnosed with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. “The player will undergo surgery in the coming days,” Real Madrid said in a statement.

Alaba’s tragic support as he tried to snatch the ball from Gerard Moreno led to the Real Madrid player’s third anterior cruciate ligament tear this season. After Courtois and Militao, Alaba joins the list of casualties with a serious injury that will keep him out of grass for 7 to 9 months.

The first part of the 2023/2024 season, in which Real Madrid currently leads La Liga and completed the Champions League group stage flawlessly, has been marred by injuries in general and knee injuries in particular. To the ruptures of the anterior cruciate ligament of Courtois, Militao and Alaba we must add the rupture of the external lateral ligament of the right knee of Camavinga and the partial tear of the meniscus of the as yet unpublished work of Arda Güler.

In addition to the knee injuries, Real Madrid’s list of physical casualties includes a biceps femoris rupture affecting Vinicius’s distal tendon, Tchuameni’s incomplete stress fracture of the second metatarsal, Modric’s muscle discomfort and Dani Carvajal’s soleus injury.