Big blow for Mali

In case you missed it, there has been some unfortunate injury news from the camp of Real Madrid. This isn’t breaking news anymore (in fact since the injury, Real Madrid has had time to bring in another Diarra to replace the injured one) but I wanted to bring it up in the context of Mali’s attempt at World Cup Qualification.

Mahamadou apparently picked up the injury originally against Chad on October 11 in the last round of qualification for South Africa 2010 but he then came back and played for a month with Real Madrid before the doctors shut him down and said he will need surgery to do some repair work on his knee ligaments. Initially it was said he would be out for 6-9 months which is possibly a pretty major blow for Mali. The best case scenario would see Diarra only miss the first 2 or 3 games of Group D action in Africa qualifiers. So, how big of a hiccup is this for Les Aigles? Honestly, I think Mali have the skill to make due without him but only time will tell. As March gets closer we’ll look at who needs to step up in the absence of Diarra, or at least who I think needs to step up.

It will soon be time to ramp up again with talk of World Cup qualification so stay tuned.