Paternity leave and Spanish soccer are apparently not that compatible. Barcelona star Lionel Messi is likely to play in Saturday’s match against rivals Atletico Madrid, just one day after his longtime partner Antonella gave birth to the their second son Benjamin.
“He [Messi] is available to play,” Enrique told reports (via ESPNFC). “He is on the list.”
Enrique and the club at least excused the 28-year-old father of two from Friday’s training session.
“The club gave him permission not to train today for personal reasons,” Enrique said.
Messi, whose first son Thiago was born in 2012, spent most of the last week in the United States touring with the Argentine national team. On Thursday, he arrived back in Barcelona, just in time.
It’s unclear whether Messi had a choice whether to play on Saturday or not, but one thing is certain — the team needs him.
In recent years, Atletico Madrid have emerged as one of Barcelona’s biggest rivals, and this year’s Atletico squad is already keeping up and in some way surpassing Barca’s super squad fronted by soccer’s most fearsome trio of strikers in Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar
“Both sides have won both of their matches [this season] and neither have conceded a goal, but the manner in which the team from the capital dispatched Sevilla 3-0 just before the international break suggests that they’ll be the team going into the clash in the higher spirits,” Bleacher Report’s Mark Jones wrote on Friday.
Enrique realizes all of this.
“I expect a complicated game,” he said (via ESPNFC). “Atletico have reinforced themselves well and have enjoyed a strong start to the campaign. It’s no wonder they won the league two years ago. They have a great coach and it’s always a big motivation for us to play against them.”Washington Post
No comments:
Post a Comment