Real Madrid confirmed an injury to its forward Kylian Mbappe through an official statement published on Thursday afternoon in Spain.
"After the tests carried out today on our player Kylian Mbappe by the Real Madrid Medical Services, he has been diagnosed with an injury to the thigh of his left leg," the statement began.
As is common, it ended with the phrase "pending evolution", which is given when the club does not want to specify or recovery timeframe or is unable to.
According to AS, however, Mbappe could be out for up to 10 days, which means that he will certainly miss Saturday's vital La Liga clash against Rayo Vallecano in Vallecas.
The fixture is important, because Madrid can head to the top of the Spanish league table by a single point through a win ahead of bitter rival FC Barcelona hosting Leganes on Sunday night.
This is an admirable achievement considering that Los Blancos were as many as six points behind their Barca following a 4-0 thrashing in El Clasico, where Mbappe was caught offside eight times by Pau Cubarsi and Inigo Martinez's infamous trap.
Mbappe reached a low point last week when he missed a penalty at Athletic Club in San Mames, and his head coach Carlo Ancelotti had to admit that the number 9 isn't at his "best level" following a 2-1 defeat.
He turned things around with fantastic strikes at Girona in a 3-0 win last weekend, and then in Bergamo against Atalanta just 10 minutes into a Champions League showdown which Madrid sneaked 3-2 on Tuesday.
Just as he was finally finding his feet since a high profile free transfer from Paris Saint-Germain, however, Mbappe asked to be brought off in Italy around 35 minutes into the latter mentioned game.
Ancelotti played down the seriousness of the niggle post-match, and said that it was just "discomfort in the hamstring".
"It doesn't seem serious, but he had to stop because he couldn't sprint. It bothered him a little, so we preferred to change him," the Italian added.
Approaching 48 hours after that incident, though, Mbappe has joined Madrid's burgeoning sick list and is now at risk of missing the Intercontinental Cup final in Qatar on December 18 as well.
MARCA says his participation there is "almost impossible". Because of this, we may have seen the last of him playing soccer in 2024.