France staff want to assess Lucas Hernandez themselves against Bayern Munich’s wishes

Lucas Hernandez suffered a knee injury in Bayern Munich’s 3-2 win over SC Paderborn last weekend, and he has since missed Bayern’s 7-2 Champions League win over Tottenham and their 2-1 loss to Hoffenheim in the Bundesliga. Per a report by Bild, the French coaching staff still want Hernandez to report to Clairefontaine for France’s camp ahead of their upcoming pair of Euro 2020 qualifiers against Iceland and Turkey to asses his injury themselves.

Bayern’s staff had already taken a closer look at Hernandez’s knee and determined that he had a “stress reaction” in the same knee that had the ACL tear last season. He’s been working individually on his recovery with Bayern’s staff and physios, and earlier in the week, sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic had made it clear Bayern did not want to let Hernandez join up with the French squad:

David [Alaba] has a hairline fracture in his rib; he’ll be out and will not be released [to Austria], exactly like Lucas, who will also not be released to the national team, because he has a stress reaction in his knee. We will inform the national teams that the players aren’t feeling well, that they are injured. Then the doctors will clear things up among themselves.

Subsequently, in the press conference following the 2-1 loss to Hoffenheim, Niko Kovac provided a brief update on the fitness of both Alaba and Hernandez:

Lucas and David (Alaba) were not in the squad today, they have not been in the team for two weeks or three weeks. Accordingly, you can imagine what the health situation looks like.

FIFA Rules, Rule...

For official FIFA international breaks, it is technically against the rules for any club to prevent a player from joining up with his national team, regardless of if they want to or not. It’s clear with what Salihamidzic said that Bayern do not want to let Hernandez join the French national team for fear that he may worsen his knee injury, but they don’t have a choice if Hernandez wants to go.

Uli Hoeness, incidentally, recently claimed he would have German Bayern players boycott Die Mannschaft if Joachim Low decided to start Marc-Andre ter Stegen over Manuel Neuer because of ter Stegen’s complaints at not getting a starting opportunity. For now, Bayern’s front office will have to bite their tongues and keep their fingers crossed if Hernandez decides to go as France face two crucial qualifiers against Iceland and then Turkey, who beat them the last time they faced one another.