Spanish semi-final rivals bayern munchen and borussia dortmund are sparing several injured or exhausted stars for the champions league at home.
BVB’s opponents real madrid will travel to the away game at athletic bilbao without german international mesut ozil and other key players. With an eye on the league duel against the new german champions, FC barcelona will have to rest other regular players at real saragossa in addition to the slightly injured world footballer lionel messi.
Spanish champions real, who are already 13 points behind leaders and arch-rivals barca in second place in the primera division with nine rounds to go, are resting ozil because of a sprained bone. Alvaro arbeloa, michael essien and former world footballer kaka will also be absent from the san mames stadium due to injuries, the club announced on saturday. According to media reports, ex-stuttgart player sami khedira will start from the beginning of the match. World star cristiano ronaldo should initially sit on the bench against bilbao but be substituted during the game, it was announced.
Before the trip to the basque country, assistant coach aitor karanka warned in an arrogant tone against underestimating dortmund against the backdrop of numerous media reports. "If we think that it will be easy and that we have already reached the final, we are completely wrong," he said on saturday. In the group stage of the champions league they had not been able to defeat dortmund.
In addition to messi, the spanish internationals andres iniesta, jordi alba and sergio busquets also did not make the trip to saragossa. In addition, the injured defenders javier mascherano and carles puyol are still missing, both of whom still need a few weeks to recover. Iniesta and alba, on the other hand, are fully fit, but should still be spared, the club said.
At the end of the season, the forces were scarce, admitted the assistant of head coach tito vilanova, jordi roura, on saturday a. "The schedule was terrible for us, and we also had a lot of bad luck with injuries, but until the bayern game we want to rebuild many of our players physically," he added. Nevertheless, the "very strong" bavarians "should perhaps be regarded as the favorites after all."
In the semifinals of the champions league, the catalans will first play on 23. April at munich’s allianz arena, the return match will take place eight days later at camp nou. Dortmund and real to play the first leg on 24. At the westfalenstadion and meet on 30. In the santiago bernabeu once again. The successor to chelsea FC will be announced on 25. May investigated at london’s wembley stadium.