Every Paris Saint-Germain supporter is waiting for March 11.
On that day, Borussia Dortmund and PSG will walk out onto the pitch at the Parc des Princes and only one will leave with a ticket to the quarter-final of the Round of 16 of the UEFA Champions League.
Hopefully, that team will be PSG, but they will have to perform at a much higher level than they did in the first leg, which they lost 2-1 as you already know.
In that match, PSG had the benefit of playing a Dortmund side without Julian Brandt and Marco Reus. They didn’t take advantage of that opportunity but perhaps the scoreline could have been worse with those two stars in the Dortmund lineup.
PSG won’t be as lucky in the rematch. After the first match against Dortmund, their official Twitter account revealed that Brandt trained and against Werder Bremen on February 22, the German international came on for a brief appearance. It’s expected that he will continue to work on his fitness over Dortmund’s next two matches before the trip to Paris.
🎙 Favre pregame presser:
“Julian Brandt trained well today, but we have to wait until tomorrow. Otherwise Marco Reus and Thomas Delaney are still unable to play.” pic.twitter.com/eCJSUDrzNN
— Borussia Dortmund (@BlackYellow) February 20, 2020
The status of Reus is still relatively unknown but according to the German publication Ruhr Nachrichten (via Culture PSG), Reus is expected to be out for six to seven weeks due to a muscle injury suffered on February 4. That would put his return well after March 11.
Öffentliches Training beim #BVB. @ErlingHaaland ist nicht auf dem Platz, @JulianBrandt, @woodyinho, @HazardThorgan8 und @delaneydk auch nicht. Die Torhüter sind ebenfalls nicht draußen. pic.twitter.com/Npc2dAkNMX
— Sebastian Weßling (@fluestertweets) February 25, 2020
Reus is a talented player, there’s no doubt about that, but Brandt is a far more important player for Dortmund and his return will make PSG’s task of advancing to the next round of the Champions League even harder.
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