Lionel Messi at Risk of Missing La Liga Return After Picking Up Training Injury

Barcelona forward Lionel Messi could miss his side's season re-opener against Real Mallorca after suffering a muscle injury during training.

La Liga is set to get back underway on 11 June when Sevilla face Real Betis, with Barcelona's first fixture coming in the form of a trip to Mallorca two days later.

However, they could end up being forced to go on without their talisman as TV3 note that Messi missed training on Wednesday to undergo an MRI on a sharp pain in his right leg, which has since been diagnosed as an adductor injury.

Barcelona had insisted that Messi's absence was pre-planned and simply an opportunity to do some individual work, but it seems as though that statement was given to try and hide the severity of Messi's issue.

There's no mention of how serious this injury actually is, but regardless of that, he must now be seen as a doubt for the meeting with Mallorca.

AS state that these injuries normally require a period of seven to ten days on the sidelines, so even if he does make it back to training before the game, chances are he won't be fit enough to play a major role.

That might not be the biggest problem for the game against Mallorca, who sit 18th in La Liga and shouldn't pose much of a threat to Quique Setién's league leaders, but the hectic nature of the fixture schedule means the Barcelona squad can hardly afford to be any weaker than it already is.

With Ousmane Dembélé still out and Ansu Fati needing to manage his workload, Barcelona don't have too many attacking options to call on.

They will face 11 games in just over five weeks after the Mallorca game, so Setién will obviously be eager to rotate his squad as much as possible for what could be a Herculean effort for any player.

Injuries plagued the start of this season for Messi, who played just two of Barcelona's first seven games, but he has since managed to rack up 19 goals in 22 league appearances to fire his side to the top of the La Liga standings.

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