United States defender John Brooks will miss Hertha Berlin's match at Bayern Munich due to injury.
Brooks, 23, already missed Hertha's 2-0 win against Schalke on Sunday and is facing a race against time to return to the squad at the weekend when the second-placed Bundesliga team travel to Eintracht Frankfurt.
Prior to the trip to Die Adler on Saturday, the capital club will travel to play Bayern Munich for a meeting between the two remaining sides holding a 100 percent record after three match days.
"He will not make it," his coach Pal Dardai told reporters ahead of the clash of the top two Bundesliga teams.
"John Brooks has muscular problems," Dardai said of his defensive leader ahead of the journey to Bavaria. "I don't even think he can make it for Frankfurt. I'll count on him for the Hamburg match [on Oct. 1]."
Despite crashing out in the Europa League qualifiers against Copenhagen, Hertha have made a good start to the season and have recorded wins against Freiburg, at Ingolstadt and against Schalke and travel to Munich with hopes of holding the German champions to a draw or even stealing all points from Bayern.
"It's not enough to play well against Bayern. You need to be efficient when you have chances and score goals. You won't return with a 0-0," Dardai said. "And you need a day where everyone goes to the limit, a good day for us and a bad day for Bayern. But it's doable."
However, Dardai will also have to do without hard-running midfielder Vladimir Darida, who is set to miss the remainder of 2016 after undergoing ankle surgery on Monday.
The Czech Republic international sustained a ligament injury in the win against Bayern and the Hertha coach said: "An injury like that needs 12 weeks."