Injury-hit Bayern Munich will be without stars Franck Ribery and Bastian Schweinsteiger for Wednesday’s Champions League quarter-final, first-leg, at FC Porto, director of sport Matthias Sammer confirmed Monday.
Bayern are suffering an injury crisis and were only able to name four replacements for Saturday’s 3-0 league win over Eintracht Frankfurt.
With left-back David Alaba and right winger Arjen Robben definitely out, Bayern had hoped to include Germany captain Schweinsteiger and France winger Ribery in their bid to reach the Champions League semi-finals for the fourth year running.
But Schweinsteiger has been ruled out with a virus having recovered from injuring his left ankle in their league win at Borussia Dortmund 10 days ago.
Ribery has also failed in his bid to be fit having also suffered from an ankle injury he picked up in Bayern’s 7-1 win over Shakhtar Donetsk in their last-16 win last month and coach Pep Guardiola has decided to leave both players in Munich.
“Bastian and Franck can’t travel, which is a pity, Pep will decide which young players we’ll take with us,” said Sammer.
There was some good news for Guardiola as Germany defender Jerome Boateng and veteran striker Claudio Pizarro have recovered from knocks to fly to Portugal with the Munich squad on Monday.