No clasico this Sunday, a priori, and no rally with the Blues for Karim Benzema. The Real Madrid center-forward is still injured in the left left calf, his coach Carlo Ancelotti announced on Saturday.
His participation in the two friendly matches of the Blues against Côte d’Ivoire (March 25 in Marseille) and South Africa (March 29 in Lille) is more than compromised, according to the Italian technician. “Karim (Benzema) and (Ferland) Mendy will not be able to play tomorrow (Sunday). They will stay here with us next week, ”said the Italian technician on the eve of the clash against Barça (Sunday, 8 p.m.), which has impressed since the arrival of Xavi.
“We never took any risks with him, not even in Paris.” He still has some pain. It’s a minor injury, but it prevents him from training and playing, ”Carletto said, while the FFF has not yet commented on the matter.
“He always came back from small glitches like this”
After delivering an assist and scoring two goals on Monday in Mallorca for the 28th day of La Liga, thus becoming with 413 goals the top French scorer in history ahead of Thierry Henry (411), Karim Benzema left in the 87th minute visibly embarrassed by a pain in the left calf, leaving his teammates to finish the match at ten.
“Small pains like that happen. But his absence tomorrow (Sunday) does not worry me. We will have two weeks to prepare him for the end of the season, where he will be very important, as always. He always came back from little glitches like that, and he always made a difference. I believe he got injured at the right times in the season, when his body needed to recover,” continued the Italian technician.
The first quarter against Chelsea in 18 days
The medical examinations passed by the player on Friday seemed encouraging, but “KB9” trained alone indoors on Friday, and did not take part in collective training on Saturday morning. To compensate for the absence of his favorite centre-forward, top scorer and best assistor in the Spanish league this season (22 goals and 11 assists in 25 La Liga games), Ancelotti has several options.
He could launch Mariano or Luka Jovic, pure centre-forwards; associate Vinicius with Rodrygo and Marco Asensio, the attackers who have accompanied Benzema the most on the front of the merengue attack over the current exercise; even give a chance to Eden Hazard or Gareth Bale, forgotten on the bench for a long time. “Everything is decided, but I won’t tell you anything,” slipped Ancelotti on Saturday.
Quiet leader of La Liga, with ten points ahead of Sevilla FC, the White House of course has in mind its quarter-final of the Champions League against Chelsea, the defending champion. The first leg will take place on April 6 at Stamford Bridge. And given the performance of “KB9” in the previous round against PSG, not sure that Ancelotti will take any risk by then.