Zinedine Zidane will have a tough task ahead of him for tomorrow afternoon’s match as Real Madrid host Sevilla in a huge La Liga fixture. Zizou will be without three of his usual starting defenders and his first choice central defensive midfielder. What does this mean for the team?
Casemiro and Dani Carvajal are both unavailable to the French manager for matchday 15 as Real host fifth-place Sevilla in the Santiago Bernabéu Saturday afternoon.
In one of the most crucial matches of the season to date, both the CDM Casemiro and the right-back Carvajal will miss the match due to yellow card accumulation in the league (5 each).
Those two will not be the only ones missing from the squad as both regular starters Sergio Ramos and Raphael Varane will also be out for this huge match.
Sergio Ramos, in typical Ramos fashion, picked up a red card last Saturday against Athletic Bilbao and will serve a one-match suspension as punishment.
Rafa Varane, on the other hand, played Wednesday against Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League but was pulled off in the 38th minute after hurting his thigh according to reports.
While the injury isn’t expected to be too serious, the French center-back will sit out this match and will continue to be monitored by the medical staff over the next several days.
So who will Zidane play in place of these four key players in this match? Here is the 19-man roster for the match.
📋 This is our 19-man squad for tomorrow's match against @SevillaFC_ENG! 👇#RMMovistar | #RMLiga pic.twitter.com/Dg0Uh4XS8I
— Real Madrid C.F. 🇬🇧🇺🇸 (@realmadriden) December 8, 2017
There is little doubt Marcelo will start at left-back and Nacho will fill in at one of the two center-back positions, but who will play right-back and the other center-back?
Jesús Vallejo has been included in the squad which is a good thing considering he has dealt with injuries for much of the fall. But the problem is the 20-year-old has played in just two matches this seasons and none of them have been as big as this one (he has started against Las Palmas and Malaga both in November).
As for right-back, I would expect to see Achraf Hakimi fill in for Dani like he did during October and part of November.
Sevilla’s attack has been average this year with just 19 goals for through 14 matches, which helps these two young players filling in. At the same time, Keylor Navas has not been himself since returning to action a few matches ago and it’s not like Real Madrid have been scoring lots of goals themselves.
This truly is a make-or-break match for Los Blancos as they trail FC Barcelona by eight points in the league. It will be interesting to see what the lineup looks like.
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