Lionel Messi suffers an injury and will remain in Barcelona as the club heads out on the US tour.
The last thing Barcelona wanted or needed was an injury to any of their players ahead of their American. Unfortunately, that is exactly what they got. To make matters worse, the injury is to their best player, and captain, Lionel Messi.
The Argentine picked up an injury during team training and it proved to be severe enough that he will miss the games in America against Napoli. Diario Sport report that the injury is to the player’s calf. The club do not want to risk anything so Messi will recuperate in Barcelona and not fly with the rest of the team. Mundo Deportivo are reporting that he is likely to miss between one or two weeks.
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Messi was participating in his first training session with the team since returning from vacation after participating with Argentina in the Copa America. Aside from missing the US tour, the concern for Barcelona is his availability for the start of the season. The La Liga season begins in two weeks and Ernesto Valverde’s men kickoff the season away at the San Mames against Athletic Bilbao.
In recent history, games away to Athletic have been intense affairs with the Basque side giving Barcelona plenty of problems. If Messi’s recovery goes according to schedule he should be good to go. But with hardly any preseason, the question of fitness and whether Valverde would want to risk him in their first game comes to mind.
Should there be any worry, one would assume that Barcelona would ere on the side of caution. With Luis Suarez, Ousmane Dembele, Antoine Griezmann, and Philippe Coutinho, for now, there is enough talent up top to play their first game without Lionel Messi.
That being said, we’ve seen how different Barcelona look without Messi and how much they tend to struggle when he’s not around. But Griezmann seems to have adapted fairly well to his new club as has Frenkie de Jong. The hope there is that these two can make Messi’s absence less noticeable.
Either way, losing their talisman is the last thing they wanted. However, the injury does not appear to be too serious and should be close to full health for the second game of the season. Besides, it is beyond time the rest of the squad picks up the slack and can put in a good performance without Messi on the pitch.