Paris Saint-Germain's Spanish coach, Luis Enrique, confirmed on Saturday that the Georgian team's striker, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, who suffered a serious knee injury and is absent for many months to come, "will return stronger" because he is a "warrior."
The Georgian suffered a tear in the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, and will undergo surgery in the coming days.
The Parisian team coach said: “It is a difficult injury. You think about the player, about what he will experience (...) He is very important to us and will remain so.”
The Spaniard, who stressed that this “doesn’t change anything,” explained; As for his team, “It is difficult to be positive after news like this. We have experience. These are the risks when you are a professional player. You have to accept positive and negative things, that's life. We'll see after the operation. "He will come back stronger, I have no doubt about that."
Enrique, who also suffered, in addition to Kafara's injury, the injury of Ousmane Dembélé, the Brazilian Marquinhos, and the Portuguese Nuno Mendes, who were injured in the thigh and absent for several weeks, continued: “It will be as usual. I do not want to change anything of what I did, but I also want to change everything. This is what you must do to remain unpredictable. “It depends on the team and the timing of the season.”
He insisted that “losing three players in the same match is really strange,” but it “motivated us as a team,” indicating that he does not want to sign players this winter despite this.
Regarding his fear of new injuries, the three-time Champions League winner confirmed: “No, we will not be complacent. We are a family. There are two or three players injured, but this is the competition and the high level. Things must be accepted. We are the same team with and without injuries. This is football. We played without Dembélé for almost the entire match against Barcelona, and we played without Marquinhos and (Kfara) at the end. We showed that we play the same way. “This is our strength.”
French defender Jules Kounde, injured in his left ankle, will miss El Clásico against Real Madrid, according to what Barcelona's German coach Hansi Flick confirmed on Saturday, on the eve of the upcoming match in the Spanish Football League.
Flick said in a press conference: “Jules will not be available on Sunday. We do not want to risk him.”
The French international defender, who suffered a sprain in his left ankle last week against Real Betis (5-2), did not recover enough from his injury to hope to maintain his place in the starting lineup of the Catalan team.
In addition to Kounde, Barcelona, the Spanish champion for the last two seasons and the unbeaten leader in the league, will be without several key players, Sunday, in El Clásico against Real due to various injuries: Eric Garcia (thigh), Dani Olmo (left adductor muscle), and Danish Andreas Christensen (torn in the left anterior rectus muscle).
The German coach was asked about the first defeat of the season, which he suffered on Tuesday against Paris Saint-Germain (4-2) in the Champions League. He confirmed that he analyzed the match and drew conclusions on the defensive level.
“We did a lot of good things, but we also saw situations where we had to improve,” he said. We have to improve as a team. Tomorrow we face one of the best teams in the world, and it will be a new opportunity to do that.”
Elena Rybakina, the defending champion of the Ningbo Open Tennis Championship, defeated sixth-seeded Russian Diana Schneider 6-3, 7-5 in a semi-final match on Saturday, reaching another final match and sending a warning to her competitors before the start of the season-ending tournament next month.
The world number one will play Leila Fernandez in the final on Sunday, after the unseeded Canadian won 6-3, 7-5 over Czech Marie Bouzkova in the other semi-final.
Rybakina, winner of the Australian and US Opens this year, who arrived at the tournament aiming to defend her title after a tough defeat in Beijing and a foot injury that forced her to withdraw from Wuhan, showed glimpses of her best levels despite some fluctuations against world number 13 Schneider.
A strong attacking start with successful strikes from deep helped Rybakina, winner of three major tournaments, to take full control of the opening set, which she won on the 11th attempt for a set point after a sudden decline in her level.
Rybakina (27 years old) continued to struggle with the accuracy of her first serves in the next set, but she won the decisive points to lead 4-3 by breaking her opponent’s serve, before she was broken without achieving any point in the tenth game.
Rybakina responded strongly to take the lead again in the next game thanks to her powerful strokes, before sealing the victory with a more confident serving performance to book her place in the final.
