The day Thibaut Courtois suffered the injury that could have ended his season before it had even started, he came home, with a bandage all over his left leg, slowly got out of his car and said to the friend waiting for him there: “I’m going to win the Champions League; there is still time.” Nine months and a second torn ligament later, this time in the other knee, after seemingly endless hours of work, the pain and the fear, and with the help of surgeons, physios and the goalkeeper who brought Real Madrid there during his absence, actually could. And with that he has already won.
It was August 10, a morning when, according to his wife Mishel Gerzig, something didn’t feel quite right, and two days before Real Madrid’s opening match at Athletic. During training at Valdebebas, Courtois had fired a shot and when he went towards the ball that fell near Rodrygo, something went. When he fell to the turf, the screams were unlike anything his teammates had heard, like a child crying. They knew immediately that something was seriously wrong and the diagnosis confirmed it: he had torn the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. His season, he was initially told, was virtually over.
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“You never expect something like this,” Courtois wrote that evening. “Now is the time to accept it and do everything we can and come back stronger.” The prognosis was not made public, but after an operation performed by surgeon Dr. Manuel Leyes in Madrid on August 17, it was expected that it would be eight to nine months before he could play again. And even then he was unlikely to be fully fit, let alone at his best; some players are never quite the same.
There were no set dates and there would be a major setback, but the calculations just gave him the margin to make it; he and his backup Andriy Lunin did the rest.
“I cried in August because the cruciate ligament is the worst thing that can happen to you, but from the beginning my idea was to be positive, never give up and push the limits,” Courtois said this week. “A lot of people thought my season was over, but I knew it wasn’t.”
He was not yet out of the knee brace when he started training again, working on mobility and responsiveness, sitting on a crash mat, ‘diving’ from the hip up. When you are injured, there is not more rest, but less; the plan is proactive rather than reactive, constantly pushing boundaries. Sometimes when the training involved virtual, computer-generated shots to hit, the pain was real. He was in Valdebebas every morning, working with Davide Violati, the first-team physio, and his staff. Five hours a day in double sessions, sometimes more.
From the gym he could see his teammates on the training field. “That can be hard mentally, but he’s a rock,” says a friend. Day by day, week by week, he got a little closer. And after Madrid faced Osasuna on March 16, Carlo Ancelotti said the intention was for Courtois to feature in Madrid’s next match, against Athletic. On March 19, with most of the goalkeeper’s teammates away on international duty, Courtois stood up from another save in training and, in the silence of Valdebebas, heard a crack in his right knee.
All That for this.
“Courtois says goodbye to the season again,” read the headlines. Partly it was a product of protecting his bad knee, of mechanics and mentality. He left Valdebebas in tears, the impact was devastating and everything around him collapsed. But it didn’t last long: the second injury was bad enough, but not as serious as the first. This time it was the meniscus instead of the cruciate ligament; it was also a problem he already had, which caused him to miss three months during his time at Chelsea. At the time, surgeons had sutured the ligament; as those sutures loosen over time, the ligament becomes fragile.
This time there were two options: repair or delete. The former would mean he will be out for twelve weeks, the latter six. They took it out, but this was mainly a clean-up job. The problem was the timing. “The first injury made me know I could play in May; with the second one I wasn’t so sure I would get a match,” Courtois told RMTV. “In the end it was four and I feel very good; I am a very happy man. My personal victory is that I played those four and am available for the final.”
The first was against Cádiz on May 4, four days before the second leg of the Champions League semi-final against Bayern Munich, 322 days since his last match. In the opening minutes, the visitors’ striker Chris Ramos escaped, running freely from the halfway line. When Ramos reached the area, Courtois opened his body and blocked the shot. The place erupted, an almost childlike enthusiasm in the way he ran to pick up the loose ball. “That day I had the same stress, the same nerves as the [2022 Champions League] final in Paris,” he said. “There was the uncertainty, knowing that in a corner kick, a throw-in… you cannot train the same as in a match. But that one-on-one gives you confidence, you say: ‘I’m here’.”
Madrid was there too. In Courtois’ absence, Lunin had become an unexpected hero, the man who gave him the chance to end this season against Borussia Dortmund at Wembley in Saturday’s Champions League final.
Courtois was back in hospital looking at his phone when Lunin became the star of Manchester City’s quarter-final – his daughter had broken an arm – but he had been attending home games all season and saw the Ukrainian emerge as an unexpected one. good luck. When Courtois was first injured, Madrid made the emergency signing for Kepa Arrizabalaga. But Lunin eventually became the undisputed first choice, starting every match since late January, and he retained his place for the semi-finals. Courtois was a sub.
Now, thanks in no small part to Lunin, there was a goal: London, June 1. There wasn’t much time, but there was just enough, and there were still games to see if he was really ready. The same went for Éder Militão, who tore his cruciate ligament in fifty minutes in the opening game of the season. Without them the national title was within reach, there were also opportunities, no risks. “He and Éder need minutes,” Ancelotti said.
Three days after the second leg, Courtois played 90 minutes against Granada. Three days later another 90: that evening Alavés went to the Santiago Bernabéu and rattled away 18 shots, ten of them on target, which was the best thing that could have happened to Madrid. None of their goalkeepers had faced so many shots on target since Iker Casillas in 2007-08, and while not all the saves were excellent, Courtois stopped them all. “I needed a match like that,” he said. “I am the same Courtois as before, or even better.” The headline in AS cheered: “The Wall is back.”
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That was followed by another start against Betis on the final day of the league season, in which Courtois played 63 minutes. He left early to give Kepa the chance to say goodbye to the Bernabéu, but not before making an extraordinary save low to his left. He had played four of the last five games of the season, a total of 333 minutes, and kept four clean sheets, saving all seventeen shots on target. In the match he did not play, Madrid drew 4-4 with Villarreal. That may seem normal enough, but consider this: Militão, returning from the same injury, has not looked good at all and will not start in London.
“I have shown in the matches I have played – against Alavés and the two saves against Betis – that I have not lost my agility or my physical condition,” Courtois said. “Maybe I’m even stronger. Two or three months ago I couldn’t have imagined it, but I am 100% at the manager’s disposal and here to help the team. When you get injured, you always have to prove on the field that you are the same as before, and you have to work hard for that. We did that. Now I’m happy, fast and moving well. I’m training well, I feel good. There is no doubt.”
Almost none, and certainly not when it comes to the coach. As for public and media debate, it has diminished: almost forgotten but not completely gone. Because there was always a moral dimension to it, a sense that Lunin had earned the right to play the final; after all, he was the one who brought them to Wembley. Could you really take that opportunity away from him, after all he’s done?
In short, yes. In short, it’s simple. Not least because that question can be turned on its head: can you seize this opportunity from Courtois, after everything he has done? And especially because Courtois is still, well, Courtois. That was demonstrated during the four games he played in exactly the same way that he could play a fifth, even though the fact that there is a fifth owes a lot to Lunin.
“It’s a difficult decision and both deserve to play,” Ancelotti said on Monday. ‘One will play. And one will be sitting on the couch. But I enjoy listening to the debate, so since I don’t have much to do, I’m not going to tell you who this week.” Still, the manager’s decision stands. It’s been a while; he, like Courtois, has been looking forward to this and working towards it. Before the Alavés match, Ancelotti had told journalists: “I think what you think: that Lunin helped us a lot and we have to take that into account. Just as we have to take into account that the best goalkeeper in the world is coming back.”
Just in time, just as he knew he would.