José Mourinho’s first Real Madrid pre-season is well underway in Austria and at Valdebebas. The dressing room he has inherited is still missing one of its most valuable attackers.
Rodrygo has not kicked a ball for the club since 2 March, when his right knee gave way against Getafe in the closing weeks of last season. The 25-year-old forward was diagnosed with a rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament and the lateral meniscus in his right knee, an injury that ended his campaign and closed the door on the Brazil World Cup squad he had spent years preparing to join.
Three and a half months of very bad days
Speaking to Spanish daily Diario AS earlier this summer, Rodrygo gave his most candid account yet of what the past months have cost him.
“These last three and a half months have been a bit of everything: very good days, but also very bad ones when I was in a lot of pain. It’s been very difficult, the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through.”
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He described unpredictable days on the treatment table.
“It’s a process that requires a lot of patience. Some days you don’t wake up feeling so good, while on others you wake up feeling great, like you could go for a run or even play.”
“I’ve gone through all of it, and I know it will make me stronger when I get the chance to play again.”
The tear he had been carrying since 2023
The Getafe rupture was not where the story began. Rodrygo had been playing for close to three years with a partial ACL tear picked up on international duty in the summer of 2023, a condition Real Madrid’s medical staff opted to manage conservatively rather than operate on. His spokesperson said the club had chosen “the most appropriate solutions.”
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The gamble held until 2 March, when the partial tear became a complete rupture at the Coliseum Alfonso Pérez. Surgery followed within days, with a seven-to-nine-month rehabilitation window that ruled him out of the World Cup, a tournament Spain went on to win 1-0 in extra time against Argentina in East Rutherford on 19 July.
What Mourinho begins without
Mourinho was confirmed as Real Madrid head coach on a three-year deal on 11 June, replacing Álvaro Arbeloa. His first pre-season friendly ended 2-2 against Fiorentina in Klagenfurt on 1 August, and the La Liga season opens away to Espanyol on 22 August.
Rodrygo is not expected to be competitively fit until the second half of the campaign. On the day he was ruled out in March, he addressed the injury on Instagram.
“One of the worst days of my life, how much I always feared this injury… maybe life has been a little cruel to me lately.”
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