Next weekend's collision in the Santiago Bernabeu between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid will be one of the most important matches of the LA Liga season. After the results of Saturday, in which Real Madrid lost at Espanyol and Atleti at home at Mallorca, the gap between the two clubs is only one point.
To make things worse for Real Madrid, they will be Rudiger for the Showdown match without Antonio, because he will miss action in the coming three weeks due to a hamstring injury in the defeat against Espanyol. However, Athleti will also be without one of their starting central defenders.
Robin Le Normand has its way back to full fitness after a traumatic brain injury, which he has sustained in the reverse fixture against Real Madrid. He started with Atleti's last four LA Liga competitions, but he will not be able to do this at the Bernabeu.
According to Relo, Le Normand collected his fifth yellow card of the season in the victory over Mallorca on Saturday. As a result, he has activated an automatic suspension of one competition in La Liga, which will take effect next weekend.
Fortunately for Diego Simeone, he has a ready-made replacement in Jose Maria Gimenez, who also worked his way back to full fitness after a muscular injury in the victory at Barcelona pre-Christmas. He and Clement Lenglet are expected to be the central defensive partnership at the Bernabeu.
However, there was good news for Atleti, because two other players avoided to take a fifth yellow card of the season in La Liga. The biggest concern was Julian Alvarez, but he managed to play against Mallorca for 60 minutes without picking up a booking before he was removed for Antoine Griezmann. In the meantime Koke Resurreccion also ran a cord, but he also survived.
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