Champions League

Ramos to play through pain? How Real Madrid could line-up against Shakhtar

The Blancos captain picked up a knock against Cadiz, but trained without problems on Monday and should be fine to start

9:15am on Wednesday 21st October 2020
By Martin Macdonald

Sergio Ramos will likely start Real Madrid's Champions League opener against Shakhtar despite being taken off injured at the weekend.

The Spanish champions suffered a surprising loss against Cadiz, with Ramos leaving proceedings at half-time as a precaution.

After the injury was assessed it was determined it was simply an impact injury, and that the Madrid captain would be available for selection against Shakhtar.

The only issue presenting itself to Zinedine Zidane is that the Clasico is this weekend, but he should trust his captain to play in both.

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Martin Odegaard, Dani Carvajal, Alvaro Odriozola and Eden Hazard all remain absent.

Due to how poor Real Madrid were against Cadiz, Zidane utilised all of his allocated five substitutions in the game with a flurry of changes coming as early as the 46th minute.

Clearly not happy with the performance of some players in that game, it makes it slightly harder to predict his line-up for Shakhtar.

But it is safe to assume, at the very least, that Casemiro will return in midfield after starting the Cadiz match on the bench. Fede Valverde could be given a start too at the expense of Luka Modric.

In attack, Karim Benzema is the only trusted number nine so he'll start again, with Vinicius Jr and Marco Asensio potentially featuring on the wings.