Already hampered by numerous injuries since the start of the season, FC Barcelona has been forced to deal with the serious injury of Marc-André ter Stegen. Against Villarreal this weekend, the German goalkeeper was seriously injured, as he suffered a complete rupture of the patellar tendon in his right knee, according to a club press release. Successfully operated on Monday, he will face an absence of 8 to 9 months, according to Catalan media. Even if he still hopes to return for the last matches of the season, FC Barcelona was studying several options to compensate for his injury.
On the Catalan management side, they don’t seem to have complete confidence in Iñaki Peña, the Nationalmannschaft goalkeeper’s understudy, who could see a joker arrive quickly. Several names have been ticked, while Claudio Bravo or Keylor Navas have agreed to come and replace Ter Stegen. Except that this is not really the opinion of Hansi Flick, the Blaugranas coach, who already has a precise plan for his replacement goalkeeper.
Hansi Flick has chosen his goalkeeper
In fact, the German coach seems to have confidence in Iñaki Peña. “We will study the options that are available to us. We have no pressure at the moment, we will speak to De la Fuente, who has coached world-class goalkeepers for many years. He will be the first person I speak to. We will see. Iñaki (Pena) is doing very well, he is very professional and has trained very hard. He is focused, even though he is the second goalkeeper.”reacted Hansi Flick.
“We trust him. We’ll see what we do, we also have very young players in defense. At the moment, we don’t feel under pressure and we trust Iñaki Peña.”he added. The 25-year-old goalkeeper will have his chance with the Blaugranas and can therefore hope for a good season in the event of a satisfactory performance. This will start with the reception of Getafe, Wednesday, for the eighth day of La Liga.
