MADRID – PSG forward Kylian Mbappe had a “reassuring” medical checkup after being kicked in training and should be fit to face Real Madrid in return leg of the UEFA Champions League round of 16 on Wednesday, the club said.
“Kylian Mbappe received a blow to his left foot in training. He had treatment,” Paris Saint-Germain said in a statement.
“The clinical examination is reassuring and another check will be done in 24 hours’ time,” the club added according to AFP.
Mbappe scored the only goal in the first leg of the tie at the Parc des Princes on 15 February.
PSG were toothless in front of goal without the suspended Frenchman in the 1-0 Ligue 1 defeat to Nice on Saturday.
Mbappe is out of contract in June and Real Madrid seem to be in the driving seat to secure his services, although PSG still hope to persuade him to stay.
Sergio Ramos, the veteran Spanish defender who spent 16 years at Real before joining PSG last summer, will definitely miss Wednesday’s game at the Bernabeu due to a calf injury.
Former Manchester United midfielder Ander Herrera is also ruled out as he is suffering from conjunctivitis.
Man City clashes with Sporting
Manchester City hosts Sporting CP for the second-leg of their Champions League last 16 tie on Wednesday.
The reigning English champions take on the reigning Portuguese champions for a place in the quarter-finals, and Pep Guardiola’s men enter this showdown with a commanding 5-0 aggregate lead after Riyad Mahrez, Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden and Raheem Sterling completed a first-leg rout in Lisbon three weeks ago.
Guardiola faces a bit of a defensive injury crisis heading into this showdown. Ruben Dias and Nathan Ake are both currently out with a hamstring injury and knock respectively, while Kyle Walker is serving out the second of his three-game European ban for this contest, so City will have to rejig somehow.
An emphatic victory in Lisbon has put Manchester City in sight of a fifth successive quarter-final and left Sporting CP facing another heavy last-16 loss.
Early goals from Riyad Mahrez and Lisbon-born Bernardo Silva put the visitors in control at the Estadio Jose Alvalade, and City took a stranglehold on the contest before the break thanks to further strikes from Phil Foden and Silva again.
Raheem Sterling’s 58th-minute effort – City’s 200th UEFA Champions League goal – completed a dominant win, the third time in their seven matches in this season’s competition Pep Guardiola’s side have scored five or more in a game.
hat result equalled both Sporting’s heaviest home European defeat and City’s biggest away win in UEFA competition.
While the Lisbon club are featuring in the competition’s knockout rounds for the first time since suffering a record defeat by Bayern Munchen in the 2008/09 last 16 – when they also lost 5-0 in the home first leg – City has progressed from the group stage for the ninth season in a row and has become adept at negotiating this hurdle after three defeats in their first four ties.
City qualified for this contest as Group A winners, recording four victories from their six matches – winning all three at home – while Sporting finished second in Group C despite losing their first two matches.
This is one of only two ties in the 2021/22 UEFA Champions League round of 16, along with Bayern München-Salzburg, to involve two reigning domestic champions.
City collected 12 points in this season’s group stage to finish a point clear of Paris Saint-Germain, winning all three home games – and scoring 12 goals in the process in defeating Leipzig (6-3), Club Brugge (4-1) and Paris (2-1).
In 2020/21 City ended a run of three successive quarter-final eliminations by going all the way to the UEFA Champions League final only to lose 1-0 to Chelsea at Porto’s Estadio do Dragao.
City defeated Borussia Monchengladbach, Borussia Dortmund and Paris en route to the final.
They had finished first in Group C with 16 points, keeping five clean sheets and conceding only one goal – equalling the UEFA Champions League group stage record.
City has already conceded ten goals in the 2021/22 UEFA Champions League, five more than in their 13 games in last season’s competition, although the first leg of this tie was their first clean sheet of the European campaign.
Champions of England for the seventh time in 2020/21, their third title in four seasons, City also claimed the English League Cup for the fourth season in a row and the eighth overall, equalling Liverpool’s competition record.
The Lisbon side kicked off Group C with a 5-1 home defeat against Ajax and their prospects looked bleak when they went down 1-0 at Borussia Dortmund.
Two thumping victories against Besiktas revived their challenge, however, and a 3-1 home win against Dortmund sent them through behind Ajax, who prevailed 4-2 against the Portuguese club in the final round of matches.
This was Sporting’s ninth UEFA Champions League group campaign, and a first since 2017/18. That ended with a third-placed finish in their section behind Barcelona and Juventus; they went on to reach the UEFA Europa League quarter-finals.
The Lisbon club’s last three European campaigns have all been in the UEFA Europa League. In 2020/21, they beat Aberdeen 1-0 at home in the one-off third qualifying round before a 4-1 play-off defeat against LASK, also in Lisbon.
Sporting has lost nine of their last 11 away matches in the UEFA Champions League proper; the 4-1 win at Besiktas is one of only two in their last 13 away games in the competition, group stage to final, the other a 3-2 victory at Olympiacos in 2017/18.
Sporting has now lost all five of their games against Premier League opponents in the UEFA Champions League having gone down twice against both Manchester United in the 2007/08 group stage and Chelsea at the same juncture in 2014/15.
Wednesday’s fixtures
Real Madrid – Spain vs Paris Saint-Germain – France
Man City – England vs Sporting – Portugal
