WOLFSBURG, Germany — Wolfsburg defender Kevin Mbabu has tested positive for the coronavirus, impacting the German side’s preparations for its Europa League game at Shakhtar Donetsk.
The Bundesliga club said on Saturday that Mbabu was in quarantine at home after a test taken for COVID-19 on Wednesday returned positive.
The 25-year-old defender will most likely miss the second leg of Wolfsburg’s round of 16 tie against Shakhtar on Aug. 5 in Kyiv. The game was postponed from March 12 due to the pandemic. Shakhtar leads 2-1 from the first leg in Germany.
Fellow defender William is out with a cruciate ligament injury in his left knee, leaving Wolfsburg coach Oliver Glasner short of options at right back.
“Kevin doesn’t currently have any symptoms. We’ll now wait for things to take their course and we are in close and very good communication with the Wolfsburg health authorities, as we have been over the past months,” Wolfsburg sporting director Marcel Schäfer said.
The club said all other tests carried out on Wednesday and Friday were negative.
“In order to reduce the risk of possible infection to a minimum in the event of a case like this, we set the testing times in such a way that players and staff would not meet before the first training session together,” Schäfer said.
