In-form Barca to lock horns with struggling Sevilla

Messi is back, and just in time.

Fully rested after the international break and a yellow-card suspension, Messi returns to Barcelona’s team for the decisive Spanish league match against Sevilla on Wednesday.

Messi will be playing his first game in nearly two weeks when Barcelona resumes their pursuit of league leader Real Madrid at the Camp Nou. Barcelona are two points behind Madrid, who face at Leganes later on Wednesday.

“We saw Messi practice at the highest level,” Barca coach Luis Enrique said. “The mini-break that he had was very positive.”

Messi’s last game was on March 23 with Argentina in World Cup qualifying, a 1-0 win over Chile. But he didn’t play in the national team’s 2-0 loss to Bolivia five days later because of a four-game suspension for insulting a linesman, then missed Barcelona’s 4-1 win at Granada over the weekend.

Messi is the leading scorer in La Liga with 25 goals and has 41 this season from 40 matches. The 29-year-old Argentine has not gone two consecutive games without scoring since early September. He has scored 10 times in his last nine league games.

Neymar and Luis Suarez, who led Barcelona against Granada, are also expected to play on Wednesday, when Barcelona will try to win their sixth straight match against Sevilla.

Sevilla enter the match endur ing their worst moment of the sea son, coming off five consecutive games without a win. Among the setbacks was the disappointing elimination to Leicester in the last 16 of the Champions League

“It’s not easy. We all thought that we were going to get past Leicester. It’s difficult for us to accept it,” Sevilla’s Jovetic said “We have to find a way to recover We are the same team that we were five matches ago, when we were in second place. We need to win a match by two or three goals to regain our confidence.”

Sevilla were fighting for the league title not long ago, but now they are 10 points off the lead, in fourth place and in danger of missing out on Europe’s elite club competition next season.

“Maybe the elimination against Leicester affected them,” Luis Enrique said. “It’s not their best moment, not their best dynamic, but they remain a diffi cult rival.”