After captain Quinten Timber suffered a season-ending injury in the first leg in Rotterdam, Feyenoord now has to deal with ten injuries. Timber, Justin Bijlow, Chris-Kevin Nadje, Jordan Lotomba, and Bart Nieuwkoop are all out for the season. In addition, Ayase Ueda, Hwang In-beom, Gernot Trauner, Ramiz Zerrouki, and Facundo Gonzalez will also miss the game with short-term injuries.
"We still have a good squad that is not that much different from last week's," caretaker manager Pascal Bosschaart said during Monday's press conference in Milan. "Calvin Stengs is back, which is very positive. He can play a maximum of half an hour."
Besides all the injured players, Feyenoord will also miss Quillindschy Hartman and January acquisitions Oussama Targhalline and Stéphano Carrilo after the trio were not registered for the knock-out stages.
"It really won't be easy," Bosschaart acknowledged. "But we face a nice challenge. We are up 1-0, which is a nice starting position to progress."
Feyenoord beat AC Milan 1-0 in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League knock-out tie thanks to Igor Paixao profiting from a major Mike Maignan mistake in rainy Rotterdam. With only two fit strikers in the matchday squad, Bosschaart admits he will tweak their tactics for the deciding leg in Milan.
"We are going to play according to a way in which we think we will be most successful," said the temporary successor to the recently fired Brian Priske. "We are not going to do something completely different suddenly, but we can make small nuances in our style of play."
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