Iraola's first Champions League night comes with a short squad

Andoni Iraola takes charge of a Champions League match for the first time in his coaching career on Wednesday night, and he does it five players short. Hugo Ekitike (Achilles), Federico Chiesa (lower back), Conor Bradley (knee), Joe Gomez (muscle) and Giovanni Leoni (ACL) are all unavailable for Liverpool's league-phase opener against Atletico Madrid at Anfield on 9 September 2026, kicking off at 20:00 BST (15:00 ET).

None of the five is suspended and none is a late fitness call. On the manager's own timelines, the first of them is not back in the team for another week.

Iraola's Timelines, In His Own Words

The most useful thing about Liverpool's list is that the manager has put dates against it rather than leaving the club's medical staff to be read between the lines. Gomez is the nearest to a return.

The closest one is Joe. Joe will probably start training with us next week, and it has gone normally.— Andoni Iraola on Joe Gomez, speaking on 3 September

"Started training" is not "available", and the distinction matters on a week like this one: training next week points at the Fulham fixture rather than Wednesday. Chiesa sits behind him — "I think even Fede should be [back in training] around those dates [of the international break]," Iraola said — and Bradley, on the manager's account, may rejoin training some time after that same break.

Ekitike is the long one, and Iraola did not dress it up: "Hugo will go later" than the international window, he said of a striker recovering from an Achilles rupture. No return date has been put on the record for him or for Leoni, whose ACL injury sits outside any timeline the club has published. Everything above comes from the manager's press-conference remarks rather than a club medical bulletin; Liverpool have issued no bulletin of their own.

What Atletico Are Missing

The visitors arrive short in attack. Alexander Sorloth has not trained with the group since picking up a muscle contracture before the season started, and Arnau Ortiz is suspended, so Diego Simeone's side land at Anfield without two forward options of their own.

That is the shape of the night: two squads with holes in them, in a fixture neither manager can treat as a warm-up. For Iraola it is also a personal marker — a first Champions League tie as a head coach, at a ground whose European nights are the reason the competition sounds different here. "At Anfield, under the lights," he said after the Ipswich match, when the draw was still ahead of him. "I love to play at night."

Liverpool Availability

• OUT — Hugo Ekitike (Achilles rupture): back after the international break, per Iraola; no date on the record.
• OUT — Federico Chiesa (lower back): Iraola expects him back in training around the international break.
• OUT — Conor Bradley (knee): training return indicated for some time after the break.
• OUT — Joe Gomez (muscle): closest of the five, expected to start training next week.
• OUT — Giovanni Leoni (ACL): no published timeline.
• No Liverpool player is suspended for the opener.

Kick-off times listed in BST and ET. Cover photo: Anfield, by Mike Pennington, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.