Lionel Messi to miss Barcelona’s opener

The Spanish champions get the La Liga campaign underway with a trip to the San Mames Stadium – but they’ll have to do it without their Argentine talisman.

Messi was left out of the squad for the trip to Bilbao after failing to fully recover from a calf injury picked up in training.

“We never like to risk any players and much less someone like Leo,” Valverde said. “He still hasn’t returned to training with the team and while we are happy with his progress, individual training is very different to playing a match. We are going to wait and see.”