Messi limped out of Barcelona’s 1-1 draw with Atletico Madrid on Wednesday night just before the hour mark, and he faces a race against time to be fit for the Champions League clash with Manchester City at the Nou Camp on 19 October.
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Earlier, Madrid’s 100pc start to the La Liga season came to an end as they drew 1-1 at home to Villarreal, halting their joint record run of 16 straight league wins.
The home crowd couldn’t sink in enough with Messi’s injury, when Diego Godin’s header was superbly pushed over the bar by Ter Stegen in the dying minutes of the game.
Messi then played 90 minutes in comfortable wins over Celtic and Leganes, in the Champions League and La Liga, respectively.
So this is how the table looks, Real Madrid are on top with 13 points from their five matches, followed by surprising Sevilla, with 11 points.
“Barcelona always sends us messages saying that we must take care of Messi, but they don’t take care of him very well”, Bauza told Fox Sports.
“We received the official report from Barcelona”.
“Last year we also had an unfortunate situation but the team kept playing at a high level”, the coach added.
Luis Enrique’s side have endured a mixed spell of form in recent weeks with more inconsistency than Barcelona fans are accustomed to.
Barcelona’s midfield anchor Sergio Busquets was also forced off in the second half on Wednesday but Luis Enrique explained the Spain worldwide was merely worn out after recently recovering from illness. This news story is related to Latest/152086-Football-Messi-coming-back-stronger/ – breaking news, latest news, pakistan ne.
“We have options to replace Messi and we have to evaluate them”, Luis Enrique said.
Neither Cristiano Ronaldo nor Gareth Bale looked at their sharpest after both Madrid forwards were rested against Espanyol.
However, Villarreal were the better side in the first-half and got their reward just before half-time when Sergio Ramos handled Manu Trigueros’s shot and referee Jose Luis Gonzalez pointed to the spot.
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Iniesta, who set up Ivan Rakitic to head in the opening goal, says Busquets was struggling with illness but admits there is more uncertainty over Messi’s problem.
