The objective of the paper is to clarify a methodology based on the use of the existing component mode synthesis methods for the case of two damped substructures which are coupled through a linking viscoelastic flexible substructure and for which the structural modes with free geometrical interface are used for each main substructure. The proposed methodology corresponds to a convenient alternative to the direct use either of the Craig-Bampton method applied to the three substructures (using the fixed geometric interface modes) or of the flexibility residual approaches initiated by MacNeal (using the free geometric interface modes). In opposite to a geometrical interface which is a topological interface on which there is a direct linkage between the degrees of freedom of substructures, we consider a physical flexible interface which exists in certain present technologies and for which the general framework linear viscoelasticity is used and yields a frequency-dependent damping and stiffness matrices of the physical flexible interface.