Lionel Messi Fit For Supercopa As Koeman Looks To Consolidate Barca Improvement With A Trophy

Lionel Messi has overcome a knock to be out there for Barcelona’s Supercopa de Espana semi-final towards Actual Sociedad as Ronald Koeman appears to be like to take a step nearer to his first trophy win as Barca coach. (More Football News)

Messi had, in response to Koeman, some “discomfort” after Barca’s resounding 4-0 win at Granada on Saturday, the Argentinian scoring twice as each he and the workforce appeared to be discovering their ft once more.

That was the Blaugrana’s third LaLiga win in a row – all of which got here away from residence – and they’re unbeaten in eight throughout all competitions because the 3-0 residence defeat by Juventus on December 8.

Maybe unsurprisingly, Barca’s enchancment has coincided with Messi discovering some pleasure in his sport once more – the membership captain has scored seven occasions and arrange one other two in his previous seven video games, racking up extra aim involvements than another LaLiga participant over the identical interval.

In his 10 earlier league video games this time period, Messi had solely contributed to 4 objectives in complete – none of which had been assists – suggesting his thoughts was elsewhere following an try to go away the membership.

However Messi and Barca are trying considerably improved as they head into the Supercopa, with their star man match for Wednesday’s semi-final.

“There are a number of gamers with discomfort, one in all them is Messi, that’s the reason we withdrew him in Granada,” Koeman stated on Tuesday. “Evidently everybody is on the market for tomorrow, additionally [Ronald] Araujo, though a preparatory session is lacking. It’s a match towards a powerful workforce and we are able to take the following step.”

Koeman recognises Barca have appeared extra like their previous selves in latest weeks, significantly in assault. Since December 9, the 4 gamers with probably the most probabilities created in LaLiga are Barca gamers.

“The workforce is healthier offensively, we now have extra gamers coming from the center of the sector,” Koeman stated. “We’ve got gamers in assault who do harm, and defensively the workforce is working properly. We’ve got gained in confidence.

“These days the workforce is concentrated on each sport – we now have improved on this regard. When we do not have the ball, the workforce is kind of compact. We’re enhancing our sport.

“Midfield gamers give us a number of menace, however firstly of the season we already performed with Messi as a false 9. The distinction is that the workforce is extra assured and we discover free males between the strains.”

Wednesday’s contest towards La Actual in Cordoba will probably be Koeman’s first semi-final in cost, with the winners set to play Actual Madrid or Athletic Bilbao within the closing.

Whereas the Dutchman sees it as an awesome alternative for silverware, he doesn’t assume victory on this competitors will immediately imply Barcelona are again to the degrees anticipated of them.

“For us it will be significant, Barca is made to win. It’s not a very powerful trophy, however we now have to play the semi-final and we’ll give our greatest,” he stated.

“We are going to play with our greatest workforce to be within the closing. We wish to take step one to achieve it.

“I do not assume that successful the trophy means being higher. Soccer is fickle and issues can change shortly.

“It [winning the trophy] would give us confidence, in fact, however we now have to go step-by-step, the very first thing is to win the semi-final towards Actual Sociedad.”