Gareth Bale and James Rodriguez have not been named in Real Madrid's squad to face RB Salzburg in a pre-season friendly match on Wednesday evening as the pair continue to face uncertainty over their respective futures at the club.
It became public knowledge in July that Bale had agreed a deal to move to China with Jiangsu Suning, but Madrid refused to let the four-time Champions League winner leave without a significant transfer fee.
The Welshman had hoped the club, at which he is clearly not in manager Zinedine Zidane's plans, would let him leave cheaply as Chinese clubs must pay a 100 per cent tax on significant transfer fees.
Rather than getting Bale's already sizeable wage off their books, however, Los Blancos stood strong, scuppering a move that would reportedly have earned the wantaway winger an incredible €1 million per week.
Following that, the club announced that Bale had been 'too ill' to travel to Munich for Madrid's Audi Cup exertions, but Zidane was forced to comment on a photo that had allegedly pictured the attacker playing golf in the Spanish capital while his team-mates were playing in Germany.
Now, left out of the squad again, questions over whether Bale will be able to engineer a move away before the transfer window closes or have any kind of involvement in Madrid's season in 2019-20 have once again come to the fore.
James finds himself in a similar situation, with Napoli and Atletico Madrid having registered their interest before a season-ending injury to Marco Asensio appeared to see the Colombian redrafted into Zidane's plans.
Having now been snubbed for Tuesday's pre-season clash with RB Salzburg, however, James' future is up in the air yet again, with no indication as to whether Napoli or Atleti have made any ground in their pursuit of the playmaker.
Indeed, James' agent, Jorge Mendes, claimed recently that no clubs were close to finalising a deal for his client and that press should ask Real Madrid president Florentino Perez if they want to know more about the club's plans for the player.