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DORTMUND, Germany (AP) — Borussia Dortmund’s injury worries have eased and coach Edin Terzic is hopeful all but two players will be fit for the Champions League semifinal first leg against Paris Saint-Germain.
Terzic said on Tuesday that left back Ramy Bensebaini and young forward Julien Duranville are definitely out of Wednesday’s match, but that others can return after missing the team’s 4-1 loss at Leipzig in the Bundesliga on Saturday.
Emre Can and Ian Maatsen are back and well-rested after serving suspensions at the weekend.
“Marcel Sabitzer and Donyell Malen took part in training again yesterday,” Terzic said. “Donny couldn’t take part in everything. Marcel felt much better and was very happy. Sebastien Haller could take part in some of the training and we’ll see today how the final training session develops. For now, we’re assuming that the guys will be available tomorrow.”
Ivory Coast forward Haller has been laboring with a persistent left ankle injury.
Dortmund, which knocked out Atletico Madrid to reach the final four, already faced PSG in the group stage, losing 2-0 in Paris before drawing 1-1 at home and topping the group.
The German team is unbeaten in its last 10 games at home in the competition and will again look to the support from its “yellow wall.”
But Terzic is aware that PSG, which already has the French league title wrapped up, needs to finally win Europe’s premier competition to justify more than a decade of huge investment from its Qatari owners.
“They have added a very, very high level of quality to this team, a team that has been built up in recent years to win the Champions League,” Terzic said. “At the start of the season they may not have performed so well, but they always got their results, perhaps not yet with the performances they had imagined. But they improved a lot during the first half of the season.”
Terzic suggested Luis Enrique’s team was peaking at the right time.
“It’s not easy to stop them, though every team tries,” Terzic said. “If you take Kylian Mbappe, for example, with his exceptional individual quality, he has now scored 43 goals in 44 games. Opponents set themselves the goal of not letting him score in 44 games. It doesn’t always work.”
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
