Rodrygo‘s Real Madrid return is no longer being measured in gym sessions alone. Six months after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament and outer meniscus in his right knee, the Brazilian was back out on the grass at Valdebebas on Tuesday, jogging gently under the eye of the club’s rehabilitation staff.
The 25-year-old shared photographs and a video of the session on social media. “It feels so good to be running on the pitch again! Let’s keep going!” he wrote — his first steps on a pitch since the night his season ended.
Six months since the Getafe night
Rodrygo was hurt on 3 March, in La Liga against Getafe at the Santiago Bernabeu. He had been on the field only a few minutes as a substitute when he damaged the cruciate ligament and outer meniscus in his right knee, and, despite obvious pain, he played on to the final whistle. The worst fears were confirmed after the game.
He was operated on a week later, on 10 March — by Dr Manuel Leyes, according to Mundo Deportivo — and everything since has been rehabilitation: months of loading work indoors with Madrid’s recovery specialists before this week’s promotion to the outdoor pitches.
What running on grass actually means
It is a real milestone, and it deserves to be treated as one. It is not, however, a return to team training. Running in a straight line sits some way down the ACL pathway from changing direction, from contact work, from finishing sessions with the group, and from the sharp, repeated accelerations that make Rodrygo the player he is on the left touchline.
The meniscus damage is the reason for the extra caution. A cruciate repair alone follows a fairly well-trodden schedule; add cartilage work to it and clubs tend to build in more margin, particularly for a forward whose game is built on stopping and starting. As Madrid Universal notes, several further stages still stand between this week’s jog and full football activity, and Madrid have no incentive to rush any of them.
Where Rodrygo fits into Mourinho’s plans
The club’s stated objective, per Mundo Deportivo, is to have Rodrygo available to Jose Mourinho for the closing stretch of the 2026/27 season — the timeline we set out when the scale of his absence first became clear. That means the spring: the business end of the Champions League, and whatever the title race looks like by then.
Los Blancos have started without him in decent order, top of La Liga after wins over Espanyol and Real Sociedad, with Kylian Mbappe scoring freely and Vinicius Junior, Jude Bellingham, Arda Guler and Brahim Diaz sharing the load in the wide and attacking areas. Rodrygo’s absence has shaped that shape as much as anyone’s, and the question of how he slots back in is one Mourinho will not have to answer for a while yet.
He is not alone in the treatment room, either. Ferland Mendy remains a long-term absentee, Eder Militao is working back from hamstring surgery and Raul Asencio has a muscular problem, so Valdebebas’ rehabilitation group has been busy company all summer.
Patience, then
Madrid supporters have learned to read these updates carefully, and this one should be read for what it is: good news, genuinely, but early news. Rodrygo running again in September does not put him in a matchday squad in October. What it does mean is that the hardest, most static part of a brutal six months is behind him, and that the next milestones — sprinting, turning, and eventually a ball at his feet in a group session — are now the ones worth waiting for.
