Real Madrid will be without Arda Guler and Bernardo Silva for their Champions League opener against Inter Milan, with both players serving suspensions carried over from red cards picked up in their final European appearances of last season.
Eduardo Camavinga is also unavailable under the same circumstance, having been sent off by a second yellow card in the 87th minute of last season’s quarter-final second leg against Bayern Munich.
Under UEFA regulations, yellow-card suspensions are wiped between seasons, but red-card bans carry forward, meaning Jose Mourinho has no way around the absences barring an exceptional pardon, which has not been granted in either case.
The Portuguese coach will instead turn to Aurelien Tchouameni and Federico Valverde to anchor his midfield against an Inter side eager to make an early statement in the new league phase.
Where do Guler and Silva’s suspensions come from?
Guler‘s suspension stems from a sending-off in the same quarter-final second leg against Bayern Munich in which Camavinga was also dismissed, with the Turkish midfielder picking up two yellow cards of his own. The one-match ban that followed had gone unserved by the end of last season and now carries into Real Madrid’s first group-phase match of the new campaign.
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Bernardo Silva‘s case carries a layer of irony, since his red card came while he was still playing for Manchester City against Real Madrid in last season’s round of 16, when he was sent off for deliberately handling the ball to stop a goal, a decision that led to Vinicius Junior converting the resulting penalty.
Having since completed a move to the Bernabeu, the Portuguese midfielder now finds himself suspended for his own team’s Champions League opener because of that incident.
