There are plenty of injury doubts as we head towards an El Clasico Copa del Rey Final. On the FC Barcelona side, none of the injury issues are new however. The Barca injuries are all previously standing. They will be without Robert Lewandowski, who suffered a hamstring injury a couple of days ago, for about three weeks, meaning he’ll miss most of the rest of the season.
Meanwhile Alejandro Baldé, Marc Bernal, Marc-Andre ter Stegen and Marc Casado remain sidelined for FC Barcelona.
El Clasico Copa Del Rey FYIs
Kickoff: Sat. Apr. 26, 10PM local
Venue: Estadio de La Cartuja, Sevilla, Spain
Preview Material for Both Sides: Team News Starting Lineup Predictions
Real Madrid Team News
Of course, the biggest doubt here concerns the manager himself, Carlo Ancelotti. We’ll see if he ends up leaving or not, and if so, if he takes the Brazil job, or goes somewhere else.
Ancelotti said earlier this week that Ferland Mendy (hamstring) and Kylian Mbappé (ankle) would not be involved against Getafe (a match Madrid won a few hours ago), but that they should/could be back for the cup final.
With Mendy, this would be his first time featuring in over a month. As for Mbappé, he missed out in midweek only due to precautionary reasons.
The La Liga fixture victory did not come without a price though, as David Alaba and Eduardo Camavinga both suffered injury on Wednesday.
Ancelotti seemed to imply that their chances of recovering in time to feature on the weekend, are not looking good.
“We’ll have to see tomorrow,” Ancelotti said in his post-match news conference, when asked about Camavinga’s chances of featuring in the cup final.
“He and Alaba both had muscular discomfort. Recovery for Saturday will be difficult.”
FC Barcelona won their midweek league fixture as well, 1-0 over Mallorca.
Paul M. Banks is the Founding Editor of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He currently contributes to USA Today’s NFL Wires Network. His past bylines include the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Washington Post and ESPN. You can follow him on Linked In and Twitter