/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/43564938/458471450.0.jpg)
Ready for the good news? David Alaba is an incredibly good footballer. Wait, that's not news. Nevermind.
Ready for the bad news? David Alaba went off injured yesterday in Bayern Munich's 2-0 win over AS Roma. It was immediately suspected that he had sustained an MCL injury of some type, but without a thorough medical evaluation, no one was quite sure as to the severity or even the actual diagnosis.
In a statement today from the club, Bayern Munich confirmed that David Alaba has sustained a partial tear of the MCL in addition to a meniscus injury. Both injuries are in his right knee, will require surgery, and and will keep him sidelined for many weeks.
It's hard not to see the phrase partial MCL tear and immediately start panicking. This is the same injury Thiago sustained last April that has been a source of continued absence, and continued re-injury, for the Spanish international for the last 8 months. That's probably the worst case scenario for David Alaba. The best case scenario is expecting him to miss the rest of the this calendar year. With just 7 weeks until the Winterpause, it's probably best to expect that David Alaba won't be ready for action until January even under the most optimistic and fortuitous injury recovery scenarios.
How fun. Anyone else ready to stick the word "injury" into a cannon and blast it into space?