Lionel Messi a doubt for Friday's LaLiga opener at Athletic Bilbao | OneFootball

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OneFootball

Blaise Bourgeois·15 August 2019

Lionel Messi a doubt for Friday's LaLiga opener at Athletic Bilbao

Article image:Lionel Messi a doubt for Friday's LaLiga opener at Athletic Bilbao

Barcelona will likely be without their captain to kick off the new LaLiga campaign on Friday at Athletic Bilbao.

Barça’s official website confirmed that Lionel Messi trained separately from his team-mates on Wednesday as he continues to recover from a calf injury that he suffered in training last week, which kept him out of the two friendlies against Napoli.


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Messi did not feature for a single minute of Barcelona’s pre-season, so it appears that manager Ernesto Valverde will probably start Ousmane Dembélé, Luis Suárez, and Antoine Griezmann up top for the opener.

Meanwhile, Barça’ did receive some good news as both Jean-Clair Todibo and Frenkie de Jong returned to training after training separately on Tuesday.

Last season, Bilbao were able to earn a pair of results against the Blaugrana, drawing 1-1 at Camp Nou in September before holding them to a 0-0 draw at San Mamés in February – the first of just three times Barcelona were kept off the scoresheet in LaLiga play.