Real Madrid supporters can breathe a collective sigh of relief as Kylian Mbapp\u00e9<\/b> returned to the grass at Valdebebas on Monday morning. The French superstar had sparked major injury concerns after being absent from Sunday\u2019s recovery session following a bruising encounter in La Liga.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
The scare began during Madrid\u2019s 1-1 draw with Girona over the weekend. In the dying moments of the match, Mbapp\u00e9 took a heavy elbow to the face from defender Vitor Reis<\/b> while attempting a characteristic burst into the penalty area. The impact resulted in a significant gash that required three surgical stitches to close. Mbapp\u00e9 later shared a photo of the medical work on his Instagram, confirming the severity of the blow and justifying his initial absence from team drills.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, the timing of the injury was particularly precarious. \u00c1lvaro Arbeloa\u2019s side travels to the Allianz Arena this Wednesday for a high-stakes Champions League quarter-final second leg. Facing a 1-2 deficit after their first-leg defeat at the Bernab\u00e9u, the Spanish giants can ill afford to lose their primary goalscorer. Mbapp\u00e9 remains their greatest hope for a \u201cremontada,\u201d having provided the lone goal for Los Blancos in the opening leg.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n While there was speculation regarding a protective mask<\/b>, reports suggest he will play without one, despite the lingering discomfort. With Rodrygo and Thibaut Courtois already sidelined, Mbapp\u00e9\u2019s return to the group session on Monday all but confirms he will lead the line in Munich. Real Madrid now head to Germany with their talisman ready to fight for a spot in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Real Madrid supporters can breathe a collective sigh of relief as Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 returned to the grass at Valdebebas on\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":502,"featured_media":48462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4652],"tags":[449,3919,4851,266,4057],"class_list":["post-48458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-champions-league","tag-kylian-mbappe","tag-la-liga","tag-mbappe-injured","tag-real-madrid","tag-top-stories"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/502"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48458"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48460,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48458\/revisions\/48460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}