‘I took the Club World Cup as a challenge’: Dani Carvajal returns for Real Madrid
Club captain on coming back from injury, the importance of his family and Trent Alexander-Arnold fitting in well Dani Carvajal misses his family. The good news is that in return he’s about to become reacquainted with something he has missed as much. For some players, this is a competition too far, played on poor pitches in half-empty stadiums and suffocating heat, something they could do without, but it has been good for Real Madrid’s captain, something to aim at. Now, 270 days later and 4,400 miles away, just as the Club World Cup gets real, he 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 has not played since October 2024, when in the final moments of Villarreal’s visit to the Santiago Bernabéu he tore the anterior cruciate ligament, the fibular collateral ligament and the popliteus tendon in his right knee. At 32 years old, a European champion with club and country, fourth in the Ballon d’Or three weeks later, it came at the worst time, or so it seemed; Carvajal though believes it came at the best, personally and professionally – which, in the end, go together in a long process that has been psychological as well as physical. Now here he is at Madrid’s Palm Beach HQ before training. Just one more session before he is back in the squad. Continue reading...
