Andriy Lunin will start in goal for Real Madrid against Bayern Munich in Munich on Wednesday, with Thibaut Courtois unavailable because of injury. Real Madrid need a win to have any chance of reaching the Champions League semifinals.
Courtois’ absence is another setback for a team that has already gone four games without him and has watched points slip away in LaLiga, leaving Madrid nine behind leaders Barcelona. The Belgian goalkeeper was diagnosed with a muscle tear in his right thigh after the second leg of Real Madrid’s round of 16 tie against Manchester City, and an MRI scan after he returned to Madrid confirmed the injury.
The sequence that led here began at the Etihad, where Courtois felt a sharp twinge during warmups but still started after speaking with the medical staff in the locker room. He played 45 minutes and produced four top-class saves before Real Madrid replaced him with Lunin at halftime. That risk now has a clear cost: the injury is expected to keep Courtois out until sometime in late April, and he remains in a race against time to be fit for the first leg of a potential semifinal against Paris Saint-Germain on April 28.
For Real Madrid, the timing is brutal. The second leg against Bayern Munich is set for Wednesday, April 15, at 3:00 p.m. ET, 12 noon PT, and the club enters it needing a result in Munich just to stay alive in the competition. Courtois also missed the first leg of the quarterfinal against Bayern, extending a spell on the sidelines that has now reached four games.
That leaves Lunin, whose Champions League record continues to grow as Courtois remains out, with another decisive night in front of him. Madrid can no longer wait for its first-choice goalkeeper to come back; for now, the season turns on whether the substitute can hold the line long enough to keep the tie alive.
