Raúl Asencio undergoes surgery, out two to three months for Real Madrid

Bad luck has found Raúl Asencio once again. The Real Madrid center back will undergo surgery this Thursday for a stress fracture in the tibia of his right leg, the club confirmed in a statement. And the surgery itself isn't even the worst part: the player will be out for two to three months, according to sources consulted by ESPN.

The news arrives at a curious moment. With the international break emptying out Valdebebas, Asencio was one of the few players José Mourinho had left to train normally with the group. On Monday, in fact, the club shared footage from a closed training session showing him taking part with no apparent issue. But he was absent from Tuesday's and Wednesday's sessions, while Éder Militao, Álvaro Carreras, Antonio Rüdiger and Aurélien Tchouaméni, the other outfield players not called up by their national teams, kept appearing in those clips. That was the first sign something was wrong.

A season that hasn't started for him yet

What stands out most is that Asencio hadn't even made his season debut in an official match with the first team. His calendar had already been thrown off before that: on July 30, he suffered a muscle injury to the rectus femoris in his right leg that kept him out of matchday squads until September 12, when he became available again for the match against Rayo Vallecano.

Since then, he's been on the bench for the team's last three matches without stepping onto the field. Now, with this new injury, that wait to log minutes is going to stretch out far longer than anyone at the club expected.

The Spanish defender also went through a rough stretch off the field during his previous absence: he was convicted of driving in Gran Canaria over the legal alcohol limit, and he was also acquitted in the case tied to the sexual video recorded and shared along with other former club academy players. A span of months full of noise away from the pitch that now compounds this new injury layoff, right when it seemed Asencio was finally starting to find his footing with the team.