Barcelona: FC Barcelona are confident that their talismanic skipper Lionel Messi might appear as a substitute against Real Betis when the two teams meet each other on Sunday.
The Argentina skipper suffered a soleus muscle - in his Achillies tendon - in pre-season and sat out of the club's opening day 1-0 defeat at Athletic Club in Bilbao.
He is set to return to first-team training with his teammates on Thursday, despite training individually in an attempt to regain fitness.
Messi was injured in his first pre-season session after returning from holiday before which he had a gruelling run with Argentina till the semi-finals of the Copa America.
Earlier, Luis Suarez sustained an injury in the match against Bilbao while Ousmane Dembele was also ruled out for five weeks with a fresh muscular injury.
This leaves Antoine Greizmann as the only fit senior attacking player in Ernesto Valverde's squad with Rafinha potentially joining him in the forward line.