European football continues these days with the knockout stages of the Champions League. For the last day of the first leg matches, the fifth in the Bundesliga, RB Leipzig, receives the reigning English champion, Manchester City. In the other match, Inter hosts Portuguese Porto.
If during the 2021-2022 edition, the first confrontation had largely turned to City’s advantage in Manchester (6-3), the French striker of RB Christopher Nkunku had shone by scoring a hat-trick. During their second opposition, the Germans had won at home 2-1, in a match certainly without stake for the English already qualified.
Nkunku missing?
The goalscoring duel between Christopher Nkunku and Norwegian star Erling Haaland, who arrived at City last summer, could however not take place. The Frenchman, back this weekend after a left knee injury that deprived him of the World Cup in Qatar, is uncertain for Wednesday’s game.
“‘Cristo’ was only able to participate in part of the training, because he has already reacted muscularly, after the workload he had against Wolfsburg,” the Leipzig coach explained on Tuesday. Mark Rose. After three months of absence, Nkunku had played twenty minutes against Wolfsburg on Saturday and offered a decisive pass to Konrad Laimer for the second goal (3-0).
Not qualified for the World Cup with Norway, Haaland consoles himself by still panicking the counters with 26 league goals and 5 in the Champions League. He netted his team’s third goal in the recent clash between Premier League second-placed City and leaders Arsenal (3-1), but was clumsy and silent against Nottingham Forest (1-1) on Saturday . Against the German team, the English champions will be without their star midfielder Kevin de Bruyne and defenders Aymeric Laporte and John Stones.
Inter wary of Porto
The other evening match between Inter Milan and Porto will be the occasion for a reunion between coaches Simone Inzaghi and Sergio Conceiçao, former teammates at Lazio Rome in the late 1990s and early 2000s. expressed “his pleasure” to find Sergio Conceiçao as an opponent, Simone Inzaghi admitted on Tuesday to be wary of the Portuguese, “a strong team which remains on ten straight wins”.
In a tough group with Bayern and FC Barcelona, Inzaghi’s Inter managed to qualify by finishing second behind Munich, while Conceiçao’s Porto finished top of theirs ahead of Club Brugge, the two teams knocking Atlético Madrid and Leverkusen out of the knockout stages.
Distanced by 15 points from Naples in Serie A, Inter hopes to go far in C1, of which it has not reached the quarters since 2011, the year which followed its last coronation in the competition (2010), under the Jose Mourinho era. It was also with the Portuguese coach that Porto won their second and last Champions League in 2004. A coronation in which Pepe, 21 at the time, had participated. Returning to Porto in 2019, the irremovable defender is preparing to celebrate his 40th birthday on February 26.