Real Madrid overhauls medical department after season plagued by injury mismanagement

Real Madrid, one of the most valuable sports franchises on the planet, is tearing down and rebuilding its medical department after a season that featured something you’d expect from a sketch comedy show: staff reportedly scanned Kylian Mbappé’s healthy knee instead of his injured one.

The restructuring, reported on July 9, 2026, will be led by Niko Mihic, with Alexandre Creuze arriving from AS Monaco to bolster the new medical team. Meanwhile, Felipe Segura and Manolo Arroyo are both exiting, capping off a turbulent period that saw internal resignations, demotions, and a steady drumbeat of player fitness problems throughout the 2025-26 campaign.

What actually happened

Segura had already been demoted back in January 2026, a move that signaled the club recognized problems months before fully acting on them. Partial reinforcements were brought in after Christmas 2025, and Mihic was reinstated to a more prominent role. But those half-measures clearly were not enough.

Now the club is going further. Creuze’s hiring from Monaco represents a bet on fresh external perspective, while Mihic’s elevation to lead the entire restructuring suggests the club wants continuity from someone who already understands the internal dynamics.

This is not the first time Real Madrid has blown up its medical department. A historical precedent exists: the club’s previous doctor, Jesús Olmo, departed in 2017 amid similar concerns about persistent injury complaints. Under president Florentino Pérez, the pattern has been consistent. When injury rates spike and results suffer, the medical staff gets reshuffled.

What investors and market watchers should take away

Pérez’s approach of responding to medical crises with technological upgrades and personnel changes has a mixed track record. The 2017 overhaul after Olmo’s departure was supposed to modernize the department. Nearly a decade later, the club is back in the same position, dealing with the same category of problems.

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