On Thursday, it was widely reported that Eduardo Camavinga had sprained his knee ligaments during a collision with former Barcelona winger Ousmane Dembele during a training session with the French national team. As such, he is expected to be out of action until 2024, which is a major blow for Real Madrid.

Having already lost Aurelien Tchouameni for the next six weeks due to a foot injury, Los Blancos now cannot rely on the services of Camavinga, who was his countryman’s direct replacement in the defensive midfield position in Carlo Ancelotti’s 4-4-2 system.

The silver lining for Real Madrid is that they will be compensated by FIFA for Camavinga’s injury, as it happened on international duty. Marca report that they will receive €20,548 per day, which would amount to a total payment of €1,232,880 if the 21-year-old is out for the expected time period of two months.

However, this is hardly crumbs for comfort for Real Madrid, who would much rather have Camavinga at their disposal for the next eight weeks. His injury leaves them desperately short of options in defensive midfield going forward.