Football
Dermot Corrigan, Madrid correspondent 9y

Croatia coach Niko Kovac blames Real Madrid for Luka Modric injury

Croatia coach Niko Kovac has blamed Luka Modric's current hamstring injury on him being overplayed by club Real Madrid.

Modric is currently sidelined with a tendon tear picked up playing for Croatia against Italy in a Euro 2016 qualifier in November, with Blancos coach Carlo Ancelotti saying this week that the recovery was going well and he expected the 29-year-old to be training again in mid-January.

Kovac is not so phlegmatic about the situation, telling Goal.com Croatia that staff from Madrid and the Croatian Football Federation had travelled to Germany to ask injury expert Hans-Wilhelm Muller-Wohlfahrt who was to blame for the problem.

"This injury was produced by the big number of games he has played," the national boss said in quotes picked up by Marca. "We have travelled with a Real Madrid doctor to visit [Richard] Wolfhart-Muller in Munich, to get a second opinion about Luka's injury and he has confirmed what we had said to the club. It is a pretty serious problem, but his recovery is going well and we hope to see him again on the pitch in March."

Madrid are also currently without another midfielder in James Rodriguez -- who pulled up with a calf muscle injury in last weekend's 3-0 La Liga win over Celta Vigo.

Another Blancos midfielder Toni Kroos complained about playing so many matches when speaking with the German media after Madrid's Champions League win in Basel in late November. Ancelotti responded by playing down the issue, saying that he rests players when he needs to, and allowing Kroos to sit out a subsequent Copa del Rey game against third tier Cornella.

Madrid's busy schedule continues this week -- with a La Liga game at Almeria on Friday, and then a trip to Morocco for the Club World Cup where they are set to play a semifinal on Tuesday and then likely final [or third/fourth placed match] on Saturday.

Ancelotti's relatively thin resources in the centre of the park have led to speculation that the club could bring in a new midfielder in January -- with Brazilian starlet Lucas Silva of Cruzeiro and Borussia Moenchengladbach's Germany international Christoph Kramer among the names being linked with the club.

^ Back to Top ^