Poor handling of Ronaldo’s injury places Real Madrid’s medical team under renewed fire
Real Madrid’s under-fire medical department failed to carry out a routine test on Cristiano Ronaldo’s hamstring injury, a decision which delayed the true diagnosis of the forward’s muscle tear. When he could have been resting, Madrid’s all-time top scorer was instead flown to Manchester with a view to taking part in the Champions League semi-final against Manchester City before being ruled out when he failed to complete a routine pre-match training session.
The 31-year-old suffered the injury during Madrid’s 3-0 win over Villarreal on April 20 but Goalunderstands that the club’s medical team opted not to send the forward for an MRI scan directly after the game.
Instead, the tests conducted on Ronaldo concluded that he was only suffering from muscle fatigue and would therefore miss the fixture against Rayo Vallecano three days later in order to be fully fit for the Champions League semi-final first-leg tie with Manchester City.
At this point, Zinedine Zidane was acting on the information received from his medical team, which is why in his pre-match press conference he declared that Ronaldo was “100%” ready to play.
Ronaldo had taken part in training at the Etihad Stadium but despite it only being a light session, the Portugal international did not make it to the end with the rest of his team-mates.
On the day of the game, Ronaldo went for his first MRI scan since picking up the original injury and the results showed that he had suffered a tear in the muscle.
After flying back from Manchester, Ronaldo underwent further tests, but instead of using Sanitas – a medical company that have a partnership with Madrid – the player went privately to the Clinica Ruber, run by Joaquín Juan who treated the Madrid star in 2014, as well as the Chicago Bulls’ Pau Gasol.
Karim Benzema is another Madrid player who has taken matters into his own hands. The France international is also suffering from a hamstring injury but instead of going to a clinic run by Sanitas, he sought treatment from Juan Muro – the physiotherapist who was sacked by Madrid last summer as part of the overhaul in the club’s medical department.
As Goal reported last May, many madrid players were angry with the decision to make sweeping changes and the distrust in the current medical team has only grown since, particularly with Jesus Olmo, the club’s head of department.
This week, Madrid president Florentino Perez has also received fresh complaints over the decisions made by the club’s medical staff.
The misguided decision-making process for Ronaldo’s hamstring is not the first time Madrid’s medical department have failed to accurately diagnose a player’s injury during the early stages.
Last April, Karim Benzema was adjudged to have suffered a minor knee sprain when the striker had actually damaged knee ligaments – a fact that took Madrid seven days to realise.
Posted by Janice Johnson (Source: GOAL)
