Raphael Guerreiro, Emre Can to miss Borussia Dortmund’s DFB-Pokal first round tie

Raphael Guerreiro and Emre Can both completed an individual training session on Wednesday. And it looks like Borussia Dortmund’s DFB-Pokal first round tie against SV Wehen Wiesbaden will come too soon for them. 

Borussia Dortmund’s injury issues have been well documented in recent weeks. The Black and Yellows only have one fit first-team centre-back in their squad at the moment (Manuel Akanji). It was thought that Emre Can could partner Akanji in central defence for this weekend’s DFB-Pokal first round tie against SV Wehen Wiesbaden. But now it looks like he will also be forced to miss the game.

According to Ruhr Nachrichten, Emre Can and Raphael Guerreiro both completed an individual training session on the pitch on Wednesday. And since they haven’t trained with the team in almost a month, using them in Saturday’s game would be too big a risk. BVB will be hoping to have Can and Guerreiro back for next weekend’s Bundesliga opener against Eintracht Frankfurt.

Due to the lack of options in defence, one or both of Lennard Maloney and Antonios Papadopoulos could start at centre-back on Saturday. The BVB II defenders impressed during the pre-season friendlies, and are continuing to train with the first-team for now. Felix Passlack will start at right-back, while Nico Schulz will fill in at left-back.

In addition to Can and Guerreiro, Mats Hummels, Dan-Axel Zagadou, Soumaila Coulibaly, Nnamdi Collins, Thomas Meunier and Julian Brandt will also miss Saturday’s DFB-Pokal tie. Jude Bellingham and Thomas Delaney only returned to training on Monday. So they are also unlikely to be available for this weekend’s game.