Barcelona vs Atletico Madrid: Aleix Vidal to miss Champions League match with injury

Aleix Vidal will miss the Champions League quarter-final against Atletico Madrid on Tuesday night (5 April) after the defender suffered a muscle injury to his right abductor during Barcelona's final training session before the game. The Catalan club, nevertheless, have quickly ruled out a severe problem and revealed Vidal will be out of action for just a week.

"At Monday's training session, first team player Aleix Vidal suffered an injury to his right abductor. He is expected to be out for approximately one week," Barcelona confirmed.

The news is a blow ahead of the crucial encounter with the Los Colchoneros, which comes just three days after Barca's disappointing 2-1 league defeat against Real Madrid. However, it will not have a major impact on Luis Enrique's selection plans for the game as Vidal was not expected to feature in the first XI anyway.

The 26-year-old right-back was one of the players ruled out by the Barcelona boss for El Clasico –alongside out of favour duo Douglas and Jordi Masip – due to technical reasons despite being fit and fresher than first-choice Dani Alves following the international break.

Barcelona signed Vidal during last summer's transfer window, along Arda Turan, after he enjoyed an impressive campaign in Sevilla, playing both as a right-back and in a more advance role. Having being unable to play with the Catalans during the first part of the season due the Fifa registration ban, Vidal was expected to fight with Alves for the starting position amid ongoing doubts about the Brazilian's performances.

However, the former Sevilla star has failed to make the impact expected so far at the Nou Camp. He has since only started six La Liga games, while in some matches Luis Enrique has even opted to use the versatile Sergi Roberto ahead of him when resting Alves.

The Barcelona manager left him out of the squad for the game against Real Madrid for technical reasons and now he will also miss the Champions League encounter with Atletico Madrid and the league game with Real Sociedad.

Vidal joins Jeremy Mathieu, Adriano and long-term absentee Sandro Ramirez on the treatment table, with the latter trio already missing El Clasico. Luis Enrique, nevertheless, is expected to have all the rest of his Barcelona key players available after Neymar and Jordi Alba returned to the training session on Monday following their Sunday absence.