The Catalan club has finally revealed that the injury suffered by http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Lionel-Messi-c22296 is not a very serious one and he will recover earlier than expected.
Catalan giants Barcelona welcomed Portuguese side http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/SL-Benfica-c40542 for the last match in the group stages of this season’s UEFA Champions League.
Barcelona had already qualified for the knock-out stages of the tournament as group toppers, where as the rest of the group was wide open as Celtic and Benfica both had to battle for the second spot.
Neil Lennon’s side had to host the Russian outfit Spartak Moscow and had to gain a home win in order to qualify ahead of Benfica.
Barcelona featured a possibly second string side as they had already completed their http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Job-c18684 for the group stages.
However, there was a lot of excitation in Camp Nou’s atmosphere as the Catalan crowd was coy on watching their talismanic striker take to the field.
Messi had scored 84 goals so far in this calendar year for both club and country and was all set to lash on to the record was he given a chance to appear.
The Argentine was just a single goal shy of equalising the record of most goals scored by any player in a single calendar year, a record held by German legend Gerd Muller.
The forward was given a chance to try for the audacious feat as he was sent in to action against Benfica in the second half.
However the favour bestowed on Messi by the http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Barcelona-c38604 tactician turned out to be a cursed one as Messi picked up a bad looking injury.
He was stretchered off the pitch and the fans feared for the worst.
However, Barcelona have now stated that the injury to the diminutive forward is not a very bad one and he may well return to action, sooner than expected.
"It doesn't appear too serious as it is a knock to his knee but he will have to have tests now to find out exactly what the situation is," said the Barcelona coach, Tito Vilanova.
"He is calm although a little worried as you would expect for a player with an injury who is waiting to know how serious it is.”
"I played him for the last 30 minutes to give him a run out and he didn't play just to break the record as if that had been the case then he would have started.”
Barcelona now face Real Betis in their upcoming La Liga encounter on Sunday.
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