Jurgen Klopp sat down for his pre-match press conference for this Sunday’s encounter involving his Liverpool side and Leeds United; the Reds take the trip down the M62 to Elland Road Stadium but with a lot of skepticism surrounding the Brazilian players from both sides.
Leading up this fixture that is anticipated to be a high-scoring matchup, there has been a lot of drama surrounding players involved in this clash and others across the Premier League as well – the Brazilian FA have asked that FIFA suspend the players who were prohibited from traveling to take part in international duty.
"The Brazil Football Confederation asked FIFA to block Premier League clubs from selecting Brazilian players this weekend for refusing to release them for international duty."
All English Premier League
Players directly affected by playing ban
Liverpool
- Alisson Becker
- Fabinho
- Roberto Firmino (Also injured and misses the game regardless of the ban)
Leeds United
- Raphinha
As per reports all week and since the decision, we all understand and are under the impression these select few plus the others from various other EPL clubs are not available for selection – but the respective managers – are still in limbo, with no clue what to do.
Jurgen Klopp and other managers are still unsure if they can use their Brazilian stars
Jurgen Klopp appeared to be as dumbstruck as us back at home and had no clear answer on whether or not he could use Alisson and Fabinho, who are core pieces in Klopp’s starting XI.
The manager said when asked about the confusing situation:
"I have no idea when I can expect a solution. We will see. I don’t know at the moment when I will have to make a decision about it. But there will be a moment.Today’s training session will obviously be a very important one, it would be nice if we could train with the team I want to play on Sunday. We will see.We still don’t know what we can do right now at the weekend but that’s the smallest problem because next time, we don’t know how the pandemic develops – there could be 10 or 15 other countries on the red list. (Via: Sky Sports)"
The Reds stuttered afore the international break against Chelsea in a 1-1 draw at Anfield. They look to remain unbeaten and we will most likely see Diogo Jota come in for the injured Bobby Firmino.
In midfield, Klopp has options to cover for Fabinho but it is in between the sticks where Jurgen Klopp is the weakest without a player affected by all of this, Alisson.
Leeds attack could be licking their lips at the prospect of dealing with either an error-prone Adrian or the inexperienced, Caoimhin Kelleher? The Reds have only conceded one goal thanks to the return of Virgil van Dijk and co.