Dean Huijsen has withdrawn from the Spain squad with a calf injury, but Real Madrid remain optimistic the defender will be fit for the first El Clasico of the season.<\/p>\n
The 20-year-old centre-back will not be available for Spain\u2019s World Cup qualifiers against Georgia and Bulgaria, and is a doubt for Madrid\u2019s trip to Getafe on October 19 \u2014 the club\u2019s return to action following the international break.<\/p>\n
Athletic Club defender Aymeric Laporte has replaced Huijsen in Spain\u2019s squad for their upcoming matches.<\/p>\n
Xabi Alonso\u2019s side face Juventus in the Champions League on October 22 and then host Barcelona in La Liga four days later.<\/p>\n
It remains to be seen whether Huijsen, the summer signing from Bournemouth, will be able to feature against either Getafe or Juventus but the first meeting of the campaign with rivals Barcelona at the Santiago Bernabeu is seen as a realistic target.<\/p>\n
Huijsen has started each match for Madrid this season aside from the league victory over Espanyol, when he served a one-match suspension for a red card in the win at Real Sociedad.<\/p>\n
Madrid have faced defensive injury issues this season with Antonio Rudiger not featuring for the club since August due to a long-term thigh injury, while David Alaba has only recently returned to full fitness from a knee injury while the club\u2019s senior right-backs Trent Alexander-Arnold and Dani Carvajal are also out through injury.<\/p>\n
\u2018Another defensive cause for concern\u2019<\/p>\n
Analysis by Guillermo Rai<\/p>\n
Dean Huijsen\u2019s injury is the fifth defensive loss and another cause for concern for Xabi Alonso.<\/p>\n
The Spain international joins Antonio Rudiger, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Dani Carvajal and Ferland Mendy on the injury list.<\/p>\n
In principle, Huijsen should be available for the match against Juventus on October 22. However, it remains to be seen whether he will be able to play a few minutes in the match against Getafe.<\/p>\n
The 20-year-old defender has become the second most-used defender with 751 minutes played (only behind left-back Alvaro Carreras, with 801 minutes) and has generally had a great start at Madrid.<\/p>\n
Huijsen even provided an assist for Arda Guler in the La Liga match against Mallorca, so he has also been important offensively.<\/p>\n
That is why his condition is such a concern, especially considering that the first Clasico of the season against Barcelona is now on the horizon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dean Huijsen has withdrawn from the Spain squad with a calf injury, but Real Madrid remain optimistic the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,937,596,18943,10981,22455,2020,85],"class_list":["post-198706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-barcelona","tag-football","tag-international-football","tag-la-liga","tag-real-madrid","tag-spain","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}