Luka Modric is hoping that the worst diagnosis of his injury and its corresponding recovery time turn out to be exaggerated. With this in mind, the player has paid a visit to Doctor Mikel Sánchez, a pioneer in stem cell and growth factor treatment. Modric went to the specialist in Vitoria to discuss an alternative that might allow him to be back on the pitch sooner than conventional wisdom dictates – up to four months, according to the latest tests.

The Croat is looking for the most effective remedy to his problem. A possibility is to go under the knife, but the player, for now at least, has put that idea on the back burner. The latest possibility that Real Madrid and the player are looking into is that proposed by Mikel Sánchez. Rafe Nadal, José Manuel Calderón and Fernando Llorente have all been patients of his at the USP clinic's Arthroscopic Surgery Unit in Vitoria.

Basically, the procedure is to develop a treatment based on the patient's own extracted blood. The blood undergoes a centrifugal process to separate the red and white blood cells and plasma with the platelets. The medicine derived from this technology stimulates the growth of tissue in the patient.

Ronaldo considered receiving treatment from Doctor Sánchez, but the aggressiveness of the treatment ruled out the idea of being injected with these growth factors.