Ribéry out of Dortmund clash

Franck Ribéry will not be available for FC Bayern’s Bundesliga trip to Dortmund on Saturday. The gifted French winger is still struggling with persistent ankle pain, FCB captain Philipp Lahm revealed on Thursday. “It’s not great. He’s very important to us,” said Lahm, “but there’s nothing we can do. There’s no point in moaning, we have to focus on moving forwards. We have depth in the squad and we have to compensate for the missing players.” Ribéry sustained the injury three weeks ago in the Champions League meeting with Shakhtar Donetsk. Arjen Robben, David Alaba and Javi Martínez are also definitely out of the BVB clash with injury, and a question-mark hangs over Holger Badstuber, who returned from duty with Germany nursing a muscular problem.

Pizarro resumes team training

Two days prior to the Dortmund encounter, there was good news as well as bad for Pep Guardiola: Claudio Pizarro resumed the squad training programme in the morning. The Peruvian has been plagued by strains and sprains recently and withdraw from his national team squad last week as a result.

Quote of the day

“Xabi Alonso and Bastian Schweinsteiger have both scored with direct free-kicks. Maybe we have another surprise candidate in our ranks – but it’s not me.”
(Manuel Neuer on who might take free-kicks in David Alaba’s absence)