Messi shows Koeman his worth
LIONEL MESSI scored twice on Wednesday as Barcelona beat second-division Girona 3-1 in a pre-season friendly.
Messi helped set up Philippe Coutinho, back from his loan at Bayern Munich, for the first goal after 21 minutes.
The Argentine scored his first after 45 minutes, spinning on the edge of the penalty area and drilling a shot in off the base of the far post. He scored his second, with a deflected shot, after 50 minutes.
He went off after an hour.
Messi only returned to training at the start of last week after saying he wanted to leave the club.
Earlier on Wednesday, La Liga president Javier Tebas said he was pleased Messi had stayed at Barcelona.
“Messi is important for our competition,” said
Tebas. “He is a player who was born in our competition… and hopefully he will finish his career in our league.”
Barcelona used 20 players in Wednesday’s game at the club’s training centre but neither Uruguayan forward Luis Suarez nor Chilean midfielder Arturo Vidal appeared.
Manager Ronald Koeman said after the game he had talked to Suarez and acknowledged Barcelona might not be able to sell him.
“I’ve spoken to him about his future and we are waiting to see whether or not he leaves, we still don’t know,” Koeman told Catalan network TV3 after the win over Girona.
“But we respect every contract here and if in the end he does not find a club and he stays, he will be just like any other player in the squad.”
Barcelona are due to start their league campaign on Sept 27 against Villarreal. AFP
The Australians were in desperate trouble when they slumped to 73-5 chasing 303 for victory before Carey and Maxwell joined forces in a thrilling partnership of
212.
“We were really focused out there and we had a really good idea of what we wanted to do as far as keeping up the run rate was concerned and try and take it as deep as possible,” said Maxwell after being named man of the match and man of the series.
“It was amazing. Coming it at five wickets down for 70-odd (runs), it was probably hit or bust at that stage. If we lost another wicket in the next five or 10 overs, it was going to be pretty hard to expect the bowlers to do a job with the bat for us.
“But once our partnership started to build, we could take a couple of risks, get away with a few and ride that momentum,” Maxwell told a news conference.
Carey survived a dismissal off a Jofra Archer no ball when he had scored nine runs before going on to reached his maiden ODI hundred.