Lionel Messi has recovered from his adductor muscle problems and will play against Spain in a friendly on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Argentina manager Jorge Sampaoli said on Monday that \u201cyesterday and today (Messi) trained and he was fine … I don\u2019t think he will have any problem playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
A minor muscular problem in an unspecified leg kept Messi on the bench last Friday during Argentina\u2019s 2-0 win over Italy in a friendly in Manchester, England.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there were some risk, Leo would say something,\u201d Sampaoli said. \u201cThe day before the match against Italy he said he wasn\u2019t fit to play and he didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Messi will face a Spain that includes his Barcelona teammates Andres Iniesta, Gerard Pique, and Jordi Alba at Atletico Madrid\u2019s Wanda Metropolitano Stadium.<\/p>\n
Spain midfielder Thiago Alcantara, who played with Messi at Barcelona before moving to current club Bayern Munich, said he was glad Messi was ready to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, I never want a colleague not to be able to play because of an injury,\u201d Thiago said. \u201cBut beyond that it is important Messi plays for both the spectacle he offers and because we always want to test ourselves against the best.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spain coach Julen Lopetegui has experimented with his starting striker since dropping Alvaro Morata and recovering Diego Costa with the World Cup in Russia less than three months away.<\/p>\n
Valencia\u2019s Rodrigo Moreno started and scored Spain\u2019s goal in a 1-1 draw with Germany in Dusseldorf on Friday.<\/p>\n
Lopetegui, as usual, didn\u2019t reveal his choice for Tuesday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are looking toward to a fantastic match, in a great setting against the World Cup finalist, which has a player that is among the best ever,\u201d Lopetegui said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lionel Messi has recovered from his adductor muscle problems and will play against Spain in a friendly on Tuesday. Argentina manager Jorge Sampaoli said on Monday that “yesterday and today (Messi) trained and he was fine … I don’t think he will have any problem playing.” A minor muscular problem in an unspecified leg kept Messi on the bench last Friday during Argentina’s 2-0 win over Italy in a friendly in Manchester, England. “If there were some risk, Leo would say something,” Sampaoli said. “The day before the match against<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":15400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15399"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15401,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15399\/revisions\/15401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}