Real Madrid have several casualties in defence at the moment. Eder Militao and David Alaba are both out with ACL tears, while Dani Carvajal and Ferland Mendy will not be risked until after the winter break.
This forced Carlo Ancelotti to call upon Vinicius Tobias and Raul Asencio for Thursday’s trip to Alaves, with the pair acting as backups for the MD18 encounter. It is the first time that the latter was called upon for a first team match, although as it turns out, he will now no longer make the trip to the Basque country.
As per Marca, the decision has been made for Asencio to miss the match with Alaves due to his involvement in an ongoing investigation into the dissemination of a sex tape involving a minor, which the 20-year-old and three more Real Madrid youngsters are alleged to have been involved with.
Asencio is set to testify as part of the investigation at 10am on Friday morning at the Court of Instruction Number 3 of San Bartolome de Tirajana. This is also said to have contributed to the decision behind him not joining the rest of the first team in Vitoria.
No replacement has been called up, meaning that Real Madrid will have a very barebones look to their defensive options for the match against Alaves – a win could see them leapfrog Girona, which would mean that they finish top of La Liga at the end of 2023.
