Real Madrid midfielder Toni Kroos will miss Sunday's crucial La Liga game at Athletic Bilbao as he is isolating after being in direct contact with someone who had tested positive for COVID-19. Kroos underwent an antigen test on Friday morning which however came out negative.
Real Madrid’s official announcement followed: "Real Madrid reports that our player Toni Kroos is currently in isolation after being in contact with a person who has tested positive for COVID-19, although all tests carried out on the player have come back negative”.
Even if Kroos' latest test is negative, as per the La Liga protocol, he will not be able to travel to Bilbao and has to remain in isolation. Kroos will only be able to join the team once he has an additional negative test in the coming days. Kroos has been a key player for Zinedine Zidane (as always), scoring three goals and setting up nine more in 42 appearances in all competitions this season. Zidane gave Kroos a rest in Madrid's 4-1 league win at Granada on Thursday in view of this weekend's crunch game in Bilbao. But everything turned upside down and made the rest useless as he will certainly miss the game against Bilbao. Fellow midfielder Federico Valverde went into isolation last month before then testing positive. The Uruguayan tested positive five days after being in contact with a COVID-19 case. If the second official test that will be carried after a few days will result positive, Toni will be absent for at least another 10 days, which would mean the season to be over for him.
Madrid are second in La Liga, two points adrift of La Liga leaders Atletico Madrid with two games remaining. Atletico will host Osasuna later on today as all of the matches of this week will be played at the same time. Madrid are also without Sergio Ramos, Dani Carvajal, Raphael Varane, Ferland Mendy and Lucas Vazquez, as all are out injured.
Comments