If there is one thing you don’t want to happen it’s a player being ruled out with an injury hours before your biggest game of the season.
That’s a situation that Liverpool have found themselves in many times already this campaign, and now it has struck Real Madrid.
Merely hours before their Champions League tie against the Reds this evening, Madrid confirmed that star defender Raphael Varane has tested positive for Covid-19 in their latest round of testing.
The French centre-back will now miss the game against Liverpool, and join an already long list of players on the sidelines for the La Liga giants.
It was only last week that club captain Sergio Ramos was ruled out of both legs with a muscle injury, and the latest blow leaves Madrid without both of their first-choice central defenders.
Liverpool will be able to sympathise with that to a degree, after all that have been in the same situation since November.
Virgil van Dijk has been absent since the Merseyside derby in October, while Joe Gomez suffered a knee injury while on international duty a month later.
And then, to make matters worse, Joel Matip picked up an ankle injury in January, leaving Liverpool with none of their three main central defenders.
In their place, Nat Phillips has done a more than commendable job in the stead of the injured trio, while deadline day signing Ozan Kabak has been improving with each game.
Despite Phillips and Kabak doing well, both Liverpool and Madrid will admit to not having their preferred central defensive options at their disposal for the biggest game of their respective seasons.
The absence of Varane now leaves Zinedine Zidane with just five recognised defenders in his 25-man squad - Nacho Fernandez, Eder Militao, Ferland Mendy, Marcelo and Alvaro Odriozola.
There are still plenty of options there for Zidane, of course, but it’s a far from ideal situation, especially with so little time left before kick-off.
