Blow for Dortmund as Goetze ruled out of final

Dortmund confirmed yesterday that Goetze will not be fit in time to face his future club at Wembley. It would have been the 20-year-old Goetze’s last game for Dortmund before his e37 million switch to Bayern next season.

“The final was my main aim and I fought hard for it in the last weeks,” Goetze said on  Dortmund’s website.

Goetze returned to training on Tuesday but suffered a recurrence of the problem which forced him off in the semi-final second leg against Real Madrid on 30 April. After completing an individual jogging exercise in the morning, he broke off training after an hour with teammates in the afternoon.

“I’m incredibly sorry that I can’t help the team in this important match,” Goetze said. “I have full confidence in our team and will of course travel with the side to London to support the lads from the side of the pitch.”

It will be the second Dortmund final against Bayern that Goetze will have to watch from the sidelines. The attacking midfielder missed most of the second half of last season with a thigh injury and could only watch from the bench as his team-mates routed Bayern 5-2 in the 2012 German Cup final.

Dortmund coach Juergen Klopp will now likely turn to Germany team-mate Ilkay Gundogan to take Goetze’s position behind Polish striker Robert Lewandowski.

“I don’t think it’s that difficult. I played there in the youth teams and know what’s required of the position. I know what I have to do,” Gundogan said last week.

Klopp also has the option of bringing Marco Reus into the centre, where the Germany international played in the 2-1 Bundesliga loss to Hoffenheim last Saturday, with Kevin Grosskreutz coming in on the wing to help left-back Marcel Schmelzer cope with Bayern’s Arjen Robben and Philipp Lahm.

Meanwhile, Bayern defender Holger Badstuber will miss another ten months after undergoing further surgery on the cruciate ligament tear in his right knee. The Bundesliga champions said Badstuber had an operation on Monday to remove the ligament ruptured in a recurrence of the injury sustained during Bayern’s 1-1 draw with Borussia Dortmund last December.

The German international needs to allow drill holes from the first operation to close before a new ligament can be inserted. Badstuber, who missed more than half of the Bundesliga season, had returned from a torn thigh muscle 11 days before the initial cruciate tear.