SoccerNews.com

Real Madrid’s Argentine striker Gonzalo Higuain is unavailable for Tuesday’s Champions League match against BATE Borisov after suffering a sprained ankle at the weekend, the club said.

Higuain, the club’s top scorer in the Primera Liga this season with nine goals, will undergo physiotherapy aimed at achieving a “rapid recovery,” the club said in a statement Sunday.

But Dutch midfielder Wesley Sneijder, who was also injured in Saturday’s 1-0 defeat of Recreativo Huelva, will make the trip to Belarus.

Real is already without several key players for the match, notably Dutch striker Ruud van Nistelrooy, who is out until the end of the season following a kneee operation.

Italian defender Fabio Cannavaro, whom coach Bernd Schuster hoped would return from injury, is not in the squad for Tuesday’s game.

Real is second in its Champions League group H, four points behind leader Juventus, which has already qualified for the quarter-finals.

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