It’s been almost three months since Isco suffered a broken leg during Real Betis’ trip to Las Palmas at the back-end of last season. Since then, he’s been in recovery mode, with the goal of being able to play on MD1 of the 2024-25 campaign – for Los Verdiblancos, this is on Thursday against Girona.
Isco has not featured at all for Betis during any of their pre-season matches, and now, his dreams of playing at the Benito Villamarin later this week have been dashed. As per ED, Manuel Pellegrini will be unable to count upon the 32-year-old against Girona.
In fact, Betis do not anticipate Isco being available for selection until after the first international break of the new season. This would mean that he also misses the La Liga fixtures against Alaves and Real Madrid, as well as the Europa Conference League play-off round tie against Kryvbas or Viktoria Plzen.
Isco is hopeful of being fit before the match against Leganes on MD4, the first after the international break. However, Betis will surely look to take zero chances with his recovery, in the hope of keeping him fit when he does make his comeback.
I’m guessing Betis has known all along that Isco was not ready for MD1, even though we have read an article of two saying he was healed and ready to play. So those early articles seem to be baseless and this one offered as “breaking news” to offset what was written earlier. No big deal, really, but why the earlier claims he was ready? Claims based on what?