In what has been an extremely tough time for everyone involved with the club, Real Madrid have been handed some good news by the return to full training of a star player
This coming weekend, Real Madrid will face arch rivals FC Barcelona at the Camp Nou in the third and final Clasico of the 25/26 season.
After the 2-0 win away to another side in Barcelona - RCD Espanyol - on Sunday evening, Los Blancos have managed to delay the title win by at least one more week. Although there is almost no chance of La Liga returning to the capital this season, there is plenty of motivation to stop Hansi Flick's side from winning it against them.
That said, it will be a very tough game. Real Madrid are points behind Barcelona for a reason, because, simply put, they are a vastly inferior side. Since the reverse fixture back in October, Barcelona have won 22 of 24 La Liga games. Consistency that Real Madrid could only dream of.
However, the team's chances of winning have been handed a huge, huge boost. Indeed, as it being reported by Spanish journalist Abraham P. Romero that Thibaut Courtois completed the entire training session on Monday, and is expected to play on Sunday evening.
Although Alvaro Arbeloa's side will still be the underdogs, this is huge news. It cannot be overstated how much difference the Belgian shot stopper makes to the team, who have only kept one clean sheet without him all season, in the win over Espanyol. Such is the difference that he makes.
So, again, the league is almost impossible to claw back. But, well, with a standard masterclass from Courtois, the team could at least delay it by one more week, and make sure there are no title celebrations at the full time whistle. They shouldn't really need any motivation to win a clasico anyway, but if they did, surely that would be enough to get them up for it. Let's see.
As for Courtois himself, there is no doubt that when he picked up his injury, the World Cup must have crossed his mind, at least once or twice. It is good for him that he will be able to represent Belgium at a fourth straight World Cup, having done so in 2014, 2018 and 2022.
His side are in a group with New Zealand, Iran and Egypt, so they will fancy their chances of progressing to the knockout stages, and well, who knows what can happen from there.
Just in general some really useful news. One wonders how much would still be to play for if he had not got injured. Ah well, we will never know.
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