Dani Carvajal finally makes return for Real Madrid in his first appearance in 270 dats since tearing his ACL.
270 days later and 4,400 miles away, just as the Club World Cup gets real, Dani Carvajal is back to face Juventus in the last 16 in Miami. “And I know what I’m like: if they let me loose, there’ll be no fear,” he says.
Carvajal hasn’t played since October 2024, when he tore his right knee’s popliteus tendon, fibular collateral ligament, and anterior cruciate ligament during Villarreal’s visit to the Santiago Bernabéu. It seemed to come at the worst moment, as the 32-year-old, a European champion with both club and country, finished fourth in the Ballon d’Or three weeks later.
However, Carvajal thinks it happened at the ideal time, both emotionally and professionally, which ultimately go hand in hand in a protracted process that has been both psychological and physical. He is currently at the Palm Beach headquarters in Madrid prior to training. He has one more workout left before rejoining the team.
“If it had happened when I was younger, I think I would have gone over and over it much more, it would have eaten at my mind,” Carvajal says. “Until you go through it, you don’t know the impact. But it happened at a mature moment when thanks to my family, my kids, I have a much more structured life, which has alleviated [the process] and helped me recover better. If I had been younger, without my wife, I would have worried more, wondered if I was really going to be come back 100%.”
“It has been very good for me to have an objective, to be able to say: ‘I want to get there.’ Because if not, I would have reached fitness on the summer [with nothing happening]. Maybe [in terms of performance level] it would have been better for this competition to have fallen next year or the one after, when I could have started on the same level as everyone else, but I will never know that. I have adapted to the circumstances and it has been very good for me to be here, to be back with my teammates, train fully. It’s been two weeks now with them and, thank God, I am ready.”
“I have had a very stable recovery, very even. I have been setting very, very short-term objectives and also trying to break the injury-recovery routine when I could, with my family and kids, enjoying being with them. Whether planned or not, you’re not playing, not travelling, and I have been able to create a connection with them that’s been very special, really spectacular. I said to my wife that I have never missed anyone like I have missed them in this trip.