Courtois and Vinicius among stars not available for Athletic
Real Madrid boss Zinedine Zidane got his squad back to training on Wednesday ahead of the Athletic Bilbao game, but was missing five regulars.
Real Madrid, having no involvement in the midweek Champions League fixtures, got going with their first training session on Wednesday morning ahead of Sunday's LaLiga fixture against Athletic Bilbao. The game kicks off at the Santiago Bernabéu at 16:15 CEST (10:15 EDT) and, as expected, their were a few big names missing from the main group.
No Ramos, Courtois or Vinicius
There were three homegrown players working alongside the first team (goalkeeper Altube, Fidalgo and Seoane) as Zinedine Zidane did without five of his regulars, namely Sergio Ramos, Thibaut Courtois, Vinicius Jr, Toni Kroos and Mariano.
Following injury, the young Brazilian has been back on the turf for a number of days, but continues his recovery away from the first team, as did the Belgian goalkeeper. Both performed a variety of individual exercises with and without the ball, while their captain did his own routine, hoping to be out no longer than two weeks.
Kroos did not train due to the gastroenteritis that kept him out of contention for the weekend's match against Leganés. Mariano, on the other hand, was confirmed to have tendinitis in the right adductor. He was expected to have been in the squad for the last league match with the understanding that Zidane had left him out for tactical reasons.
Real Madrid will return to training on Thursday morning at 11:00, and this will be held behind closed doors in Valdebebas.