London (Reuters)
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola said he will know at the last minute how fit Kevin De Bruyne will be for Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final against Liverpool, after the midfielder was unable to train due to a calf stitch.
De Bruyne was replaced in the second half of the Champions League quarter-final match against Atletico Madrid, and Guardiola said that the Belgian international and defender Kyle Walker, who suffered a leg injury, did not train.
“He has some stitches in his calf, it’s not a muscle injury, and tomorrow we will know the condition of De Bruyne and also Walker,” Guardiola told reporters today, Friday, before the match at Wembley Stadium. .
Guardiola used American goalkeeper Zack Stephen in the FA Cup this season, but he did not confirm whether he would start the match at the expense of the main goalkeeper Ederson.
“I will think about whether Stephen will start the game, but I usually push him in cup matches, I will discuss it with the doctors.”
And Manchester City played with a disciplined performance, to draw narrowly without goals with its host Atletico Madrid after a tense match, and qualified for the semi-finals of the European Champions League, with a 1-0 lead in the aggregate score, to set a date with Real Madrid.
City will play the Liverpool match just three days after the return match against Atletico in Madrid, and the English team trained at Millwall, the second division, to avoid traveling from Manchester to London.
“Traveling from Manchester to London is exhausting, the club tried to find somewhere close to us, that’s why we used Millwalls,” he said.
City and Liverpool drew 2-2 in a match at the top of the Premier League standings this weekend, and Guardiola likened playing with Jurgen Klopp’s team again to the rivalry he had with Real Madrid when he led Barcelona.
“We played with Real Madrid four times in ten days, it is the second time we face the same team, and you always learn when you face Liverpool, when you play in a short time, you learn more, it’s like basketball,” he said.
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