Beyond the Rivalry, Courtois’ Message to Ter Stegen: “It Hurt Me to See You Like This”

Barcelona’s perfect start to the season has only been marred by the injuries that have targeted Flick’s team. The latest is particularly serious because it will deprive the Blaugrana of their first-choice goalkeeper for the entire season: at the end of the first half of the 5-1 victory away to Villarreal, Marc-Andre ter Stegen He was carried out in tears on a stretcher and taken to the hospital for tests. The German international suffered a ruptured patellar tendon in his right knee.

Despite his anger, ter Stegen will surely have appreciated his colleague’s words Thibaut Courtois. A year ago the Belgian goalkeeper was seriously injured, today he wanted to show closeness to his rival: “I’m sorry for the injury, it really hurt me to see you leave the field like that. I hope you can recover soon and we’ll see each other again in goal”, he wrote on X.

What will Barça do now?? With ter Stegen’s injury, Inaki Pena (25) will be the new number one but the Catalan club is already looking for a free goalkeeper on the market to strengthen their squad. The available players are Keylor Navas, Thomas Koubek, Loris Karius, Jordi Masip and Alexandre Letellier.