Against Villarreal this weekend, Marc-André ter Stegen was seriously injured and suffered a complete rupture of the patellar tendon in his right knee. Successfully operated on Monday Tuesday, the German will have to face an absence of 8 to 9 months, according to the Catalan media. Even if the German still hopes to return for the last matches of the season, the Catalan club is inclined to recruit a new goalkeeper and several names have already been mentioned between Stole Dimitrievski (30 years old), Valencia’s replacement goalkeeper, Guillaume Restes of Toulouse, and Ter Stegen’s current understudy, Iñaki Peña.
Firstly, he will be in goal for the next matches, starting with the reception of Getafe tomorrow evening (9pm). Hansi Flick even confirmed it in a press conference on Tuesday.We’ll see. Iñaki (Pena) is doing very well, he’s very professional and has trained very hard. He’s focused, even though he’s the second goalkeeper. 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.»
Barça have contacted Szczesny
This is not the only information given by the German coach during this press conference. He also did not deny the possible arrival of another goalkeeper capable of replacing Ter Stegen during his convalescence.We will look at 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.“In other words, Peña holds part of his destiny in his hands, through his performances. The market will decide the rest. One of the options already being worked on points to a goalkeeper… retired. At 34, Wojciech Szczesny ended his career just a month ago after his contract at Juventus was not renewed.
Some Polish sources indicated during the day that a call from Barça could make him change his mind and that is good. According to Sportthe Blaugranas have already contacted the goalkeeper and his agent. To optimize the chances of success of this case, Robert Lewandowski also picked up the phone. The two men are particularly close, they who have been the two pillars of the Polish selection this last decade. Be careful, however, because Sport reveals that the goalkeeper must respect a clause inserted at the time of leaving Juventus. In short, if he joins a top team within a certain period of time, he will have to compensate Juventus. The amount would not be high, but Barça will not move until this problem is resolved. In the event of failure, the name of Keylor Navas would be the priority…
