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It looks more and more likely that Barcelona will have to be without their captain for the first official match of the new season.
Captain Lionel Messi trained separately from the group once again on Wednesday, the club announced. Messi has been recovering from a calf injury suffered in his first training session early last week, which caused him to miss the United States tour and the two friendlies against Napoli.
Messi did not play a single minute of preseason football and it’s becoming more and more clear that he will not be in the 18-man squad for the trip to the Basque Country and the La Liga opener against Athletic Bilbao. With Messi out Ernesto Valverde will probably start the ‘DSG’ trio of Ousmane Dembélé, Luis Suárez and Antoine Griezmann at San Mamés.