Following their 1-0 home win over Eintracht Frankfurt in the Bundesliga, Borussia Dortmund's players once again had to focus on recovering quickly. Only the reserves took part in Sunday's open training session. Saturday's starters completed their recovery session in the gym. Monday's schedule featured the final training session, the only full-team session before the DFB-Pokal match against Werder Bremen. Carney Chukwuemeka had sat out parts of Sunday's training to manage his workload. In the final session, he showed he was fit to play.
While Chukwuemeka is therefore set to be in the squad for the DFB-Pokal as planned, backup goalkeeper Alexander Meyer could miss out. The keeper missed Sunday's and Monday's sessions through illness. “We won't take any risks tomorrow,” Niko Kovac made clear, explaining that Meyer had been sidelined with a cold and a fever.
Konstantinos Karetsas will definitely not be in the squad. The midfielder suffered a ligament injury in his right foot in the Bundesliga away match at Union Berlin and will also have to sit out the game against Werder Bremen. Kovac said: “He's not ready to play yet. He's starting to run in straight lines without pain again. He's feeling positive, which I'm pleased about. But he's not an option for tomorrow's game. We'll assess whether he could be ready for the weekend.”
Aside from Konstantinos Karetsas and possibly Alexander Meyer, as well as long-term absentees Emre Can, Giannis Konstantelias (both torn cruciate ligaments) and Justin Lerma (muscle injury), Ramy Bensebaini will also be unavailable. The BVB defender is serving the second and final match of his cup suspension after being sent off in the Supercup against Bayern Munich. Niko Kovac had already indicated that Joane Gadou would replace the Algerian in Dortmund's starting line-up: “He'll definitely play against Bremen.”
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.