Sporting de Gijón’s Roberto Canella Diagnosed With Two Cracked Ribs

Sporting de Gijón fullback Roberto Canella is out at least two weeks with a pair of cracked ribs, suffered in a collision with his own goalkeeper Juan Pablo in the opening minute of Sporting's shocking victory over Real Madrid.

Canella left the match in severe pain which sparked early fears of a fracture and possible further internal injury. Fortunately, the initial examinations ruled out a fracture, but swelling around the injury kept Canella out of Sporting's 1-0 defeat of Osasuna on Sunday. Once the swelling finally went down, x-rays showed two cracked ribs that will keep the left back sidelined and unable to participate in any kind of training until the cracks begin to heal.

The Canella news compounds manager Manuel Preciado injury issues, who will likely be without goalkeeper Ivan Cuellar and midfielders Ayoze and Gonzalez Carmelo for their next match against Real Sociedad. Preciado could get a boost from the return of Diego Castro who played about 30 minutes against Osasuna in a substitute role.

Despite the injury troubles, Sporting has not lost in league play since a March 1st defeat at the hands of Sevilla and have moved up to 11th place in the table. It's a fine run of form that has seen Sporting go 4-0-1 with all four victories coming via a clean sheet, including their historic 1-0 defeat of Real Madrid at the Bernabéu. The victory ended Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho's historic nine-year, 151 match home winning streak he'd begun as the manager of FC Porto.