Open Thread: October 30, 2020.

Hola Madridistas!

The Open Thread/Daily Merengue is a place where you can discuss anything and everything related to football. Feel free to discuss the topics presented here, or start your very own discussions! The Open thread will be posted every day by one of the mods: Valyrian Steel, Felipejack, YoSnail or Oscnar.

Will Courtois be available in the next game?

Apparently, Courtois didn’t train with the rest the team yesterday. He trained inside facilities with Nacho and Carvajal. There have been rumors of Lunin starting this weekend game against Huesca. The club has not issued any statement with regards to Courtois so we assume that anything at this point is minor. The Belgian has arguably been the best player for Los Blancos this season and losing him for an extended period could be catastrophic.

Odegaard and Odriozola appear to be close to a return.

Martin Ødegaard and Álvaro Odriozola did some individual work on the grass. The Norwegian looked to have shaken off his calf injury as Real Madrid trained on Thursday. Mariano Diaz also trained normally with the team.

Lukaku could miss Inter’s trip to Madrid.

Inter have confirmed that striker Romelu Lukaku has sustained a muscle strain via an official statement posted on the club’s website. In their statement, Inter stated that Lukaku underwent an MRI Scan earlier on today at the Humanitas institute in Rozzano after a problem encountered in Tuesday’s Champions League group stage draw with Shakhtar Donetsk and the scan confirmed that the Belgian national team forward has suffered a muscle strain in his left thigh.

He’s now a doubt to play Real Madrid in the Champions League next week and his status is day to day. This is a must win game for both teams with Inter on 2 points and Real Madrid on 1 after two matchdays.

Benzema and Vinicius.

Marca reported that Benzema approached Vinicius yesterday during the training session and neither of them want to give the story too much importance. Vinicius accepted Benzema’s explanation and the case is closed. It was later noticed that Benzema didn’t pass to Vinicius in training. Just kidding.

Hazard confirms that he feels fine.

After the last game, Hazard sent a message to Real Madrid’s head of medical department, Niko Mihic, stating that he didn’t feel any pain in the ankle and quadriceps. This will come as a big relief to the medical staff and to Madridistas everywhere. It will be great to see more from Hazard in the upcoming games.

Brahim and Kubo both win in the Europa League.

Brahim scored Milan’s first goal in a commanding win (3-0) over Sparta Prague. Brahim initially stole possession from Lischka and the ball then fell to Ibrahimovic who showed great awareness to cross to Brahim who cut inside and finished past Heca. He now has 5 goals in 7 games for Milan and there are reports already that AC Milan wants the attacker permanently.

Takefusa Kubo also saw his side beat Qarabag 3-1 though all 3 goals from the yellow submarine came after he was substituted. Kubo still played well and recorded 4 key passes and had some solid chance creation before he was taken off.

Elsewhere Gareth Bale also started for Tottenham against Antwerp but had a poor outing and was substituted on 58 minutes as his side eventually lost 1-0.