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Paris Saint-Germain pair Neymar and Kylian Mbappe will not make the trip to Amiens for Saturday’s Ligue 1 match with next week’s Champions League round of 16 first leg away at Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday.
The Brazil international has been out since the home win over Montpellier on Feb. 1 with a rib injury, yet has trained with his teammates this past week, while the Frenchman has featured regularly since his disagreement with coach Thomas Tuchel during the same Montpellier victory.
“He has trained with us,” the German said of Neymar during Friday’s prematch press conference. “He is with us. However, he is better protected in training than he is during matches. The risk gets less by the day.
“Sure, I would prefer that he plays every three days. Without playing against Amiens, though, he will not be in optimum condition in Dortmund.
“Of course, I want him to play. However, I cannot always push him to. The advice of everyone, not just the player, but the medical staff, and me as coach too, must be in agreement. It is complicated.”
Asked about Neymar’s midweek trip to Germany to launch his own fashion range with PSG partners Replay, Tuchel was unbothered.
“We knew about Germany four to six weeks ago.” He said. “The club and I were in agreement that we could let him go there — no problem.”
PSG have a history of losing the South American to injury at this point in the season, with two metatarsal problems cropping up in his first two campaigns since joining for a world-record €222 million from Barcelona back in 2017.
Tuchel will be without Pablo Sarabia, Thomas Meunier and Layvin Kurzawa, but he has been boosted by the returns of Marquinhos, Marco Verratti and Idrissa Gueye to the squad.
The trio were absent for the Coupe de France win away at Dijon in midweek, while Presnel Kimpembe was ruled out by Tuchel during the conference, with Abdou Diallo and Colin Dagba still sidelined.