Real Madrid’s Aurelien Tchouameni will miss next week’s Champions League quarter-final second leg at the Etihad due to suspension.
The Frenchman, who played at centre-back in Tuesday’s first leg at the Bernabeu against Manchester City, was one of four Madrid players who knew ahead of the game that a booking would rule them out of the reverse fixture in Manchester in eight days’ time.
And it took less than two minutes for Tchouameni to receive a yellow card in the first leg, his third in the Champions League this season, which results in an automatic one-match ban.
The 24-year-old felled Jack Grealish after the winger cut inside and slalomed through the Madrid midfield in the opening exchanges. It was a costly foul in more ways than one for Tchouameni, with City scoring from the resulting free kick.
Bernardo Silva, from a wide area, shaped as if to cross the ball, before he arced a shot towards the front post and the ball managed to squeeze into the sizeable gap left by Andriy Lunin.
But with Tchouameni out of the second leg, Carlo Ancelotti is likely to select Nacho alongside Antonio Rudiger at the heart of defence. Eder Militao is another option for Los Blancos, although the Brazilian has only recently returned from a long-term knee injury and hasn’t started a match since the opening weekend of the season.
Meanwhile, Jude Bellingham, Vinicius Junior and Eduardo Camavinga are also a booking away from a suspension in Europe, as is City’s Ruben Dias.
