Chelsea confirmed Oriol Romeu would be out for six months after the defensive midfielder suffered a serious knee injury in the English Premier League game against Sunderland.
Romeu injured his cruciate knee ligament, and underwent successful reconstruction surgery Monday, the club confirmed.
"Oriol Romeu underwent anterior cruciate reconstruction surgery and medial meniscus repair yesterday (Monday)," the club said in a statement on their official website. "He is expected to be out for six months.
"The 21-year-old midfielder suffered the knee injury during the first half of the match at Sunderland on Saturday and returned to London for assessment instead of flying to Japan (for the Club World Cup)."
Rafa Benitez will not have too many problems in replacing Romeu, although he had taken a liking to the Barcelona youth product, with the likes of John Obi Mikel, Ramires and Frank Lampard in the squad.
Meanwhile, Fernando Torres said Chelsea are taking the Club World Cup really seriously and are desperate to take home the title.
"How many people don't take this tournament seriously, or don't think it is like the real World Cup? It is for the clubs," Torres said. "You ask the South American people. David Luiz showed me a video of Corinthians fans at the airport, it was full of fans cheering the team and travelling to Japan to support, so it is important.
"In Europe maybe we don't give it as much attention, and to some people it might not mean much, but to me it does, so this is not a holiday or a break, this is a World Cup.
"It's nice to be involved, and maybe to be able to say you are a world champion. The European Super Cup was just as important to us and we lost, so we don't want that disappointment.
"It (winning the title) wouldn't make up for the Champions League, they are different things.
"It was a dream to win it last season and we wanted to do it again this time to be the first team to do two in a row, and it's a big disappointment to go out in the group stage.
"Nothing can make up for it but we must look forward, we are in a different competition now, the Europa League, and we want to win that too to play in and win another Super Cup.
"But now we must forget the Champions League, because we are out, and focus on this instead. There are not many chances to play in this competition, so we have to take it. Who knows if we will play in another one?"
Chelsea play their first match of the tournament against Monterrey in the semi-finals Thursday.
