Borussia Dortmund returned to action on Saturday as they hosted rivals Schalke with the Bundesliga returning as the lockdown measures in Germany were eased.
The coronavirus pandemic ground football to a halt in March, and while Germany wasn’t hit as hard by the outbreak and managed it well, they have been able to relax measures earlier than many other countries.
That in turn led to the Bundesliga getting the green light to resume on Saturday, but there wasn’t great news on the injury front for Dortmund as they suffered a late setback while Jadon Sancho was named on the bench.
As noted by the Sun, the 20-year-old wasn’t named in the starting XI as he’s said to be nursing a calf injury and so no risks were seemingly taken as he was left on the sidelines.
It’s suggested that the injury could be a minor one and that it may have been more precautionary than anything, but Dortmund will monitor him closely as it remains to be seen if he’ll feature against Schalke at all.
Meanwhile, there was more bad news for the hosts as Giovanni Reyna was a late scratch from the starting XI, with respected German journalist Raphael Honingstein noting below that he picked up an injury in the warm-up.
With Dortmund noting that Marco Reus, Dan-Axel Zagadou, Axel Witsel, Emre Can and Nico Schulz were all missing due to injury already, as per their tweet below, boss Lucien Favre will be desperate to see them return in the coming weeks with his side still in the thick of a title race.
For many fans tuning in from England though, they’ll be waiting to get a glimpse of Sancho to see just how crucial he has become for Dortmund having bagged 17 goals and 19 assists in just 35 games so far this season.
Reyna got injured in the warm-up
— Raphael Honigstein (@honigstein) May 16, 2020
The following players are unavailable due to injury:
– Marco Reus
– Dan-Axel Zagadou
– Axel Witsel
– Emre Can
– Nico Schulz pic.twitter.com/77UEG2GwZj— Borussia Dortmund (@BlackYellow) May 16, 2020