Atletico Madrid Make Dig at Real Madrid Over Valverde Injury

During the Madrid derby away to Atletico three weeks ago, Real Madrid skipper Federico Valverde was on the end of a nasty looking challenge from Kang-in Lee, which was controversially not given as a red card by the referee, a decision that La Liga retrospectively admitted was wrong. 

Despite the brutal challenge, Valverde was able to complete the full 90 minutes, though he then did not go on international duty with the Uruguay national team, for their friendlies against Japan, South Korea (ironically a game that Lee played in), and India.  

So, this lead to fans being worried if the 28-year old was injured as a result of this challenge, with some suggesting that playing on for the whole game could have aggravated any potential injury. 

However, that does not look to be the case, with the skipper called up by manager Jose Mourinho for Real Madrid's match day eight La Liga clash at home to Villarreal on Saturday night. 

It remains to be seen whether or not he is physically able to start the game against the Yellow Submarine, but he is clearly fit enough to be a part of the squad, so the injury or otherwise cannot have been too bad. 

As a result of this, Atletico have taken to social media to take a dig at Real Madrid, implying that he the challenge was exaggerated, that he was never really injured, and that the club pretended otherwise to make sure he did not go on international duty, despite being the captain of Uruguay. 

On Twitter, Atletico said: "We want to congratulate Real Madrid for continuing to make history by proving that 100% of the world's medical community was wrong." This was followed by four hashtags, which translated into English say: Miraculous recovery, Medical report, Grade 3 sprain, and the history you made. 

In the days after the game, there had been talk that, as touched on there, Valverde had suffered a grade 3 sprain, and could be out of action for weeks, if not a couple of months. Well, that clearly is not the case.

Still, loads of club do this. Real Madrid are certainly not the first to feign a player's injury to pull them out of international duty, particularly when the break only consists of friendlies, rather than World Cup qualifiers or something like that. Ah well, all fun and games at the end of the day.