Zidane has defensive decisions to make

AHEAD of Saturday’s match against Sporting, Real Madrid trained as normal on Friday, albeit without Gareth Bale, Pepe and Raphael Varane.

During Real’s Champions League win over Bayern Munich, the Welshman suffered an injury to his right calf which saw him substituted early.

The two central defenders have longer term problems and both men will miss the entire month of April.

As a result, Real’s final training session of the week was somewhat hindered by these issues at the back, as Zidane prepares to make major rotations for the Sporting clash.

In addition to Pepe and Varane’s injury, Dani Carvajal is suspended and Nacho is one booking away from being ruled out of El Clasico.

As a result, Zidane is even considering deploying defensive midfielder Casemiro as a centre-back to plug a gap.

It has not yet been ruled out that Fabio Coentrao could feature too, allowing Marcelo precious rest ahead of a big week for Real in which they face Bayern and Barcelona in the space of just four days.

Alvaro Tejero was the only youth team player to take part in the session and could also play a part in the game.

SOURCE: MARCA