Lionel Messi will be available to face Celtic in Dublin on Saturday after all as a result of cutting short his summer break to rejoin the Barcelona squad.
The champions of Spain will travel to England today for a training camp at St George's Park in Staffordshire, and it was announced last week that they had given Messi, the reigning FIFA world player of the year, an extra week's holiday. That meant he
was due to be absent until the start of August following his exertions at the Copa America this summer, where he helped Argentina reach the final before losing on penalties to Chile.
However, the 29-year-old, who announced his international retirement following that loss, has decided to return early and on Saturday was named in Luis Enrique's 25-man travelling squad to England.
As well as Messi, Barca confirmed the likes of Luis Suarez, Arda Turan and Aleix Vidal will be among 13 senior players at the National Football Centre. There will also be 12 members from the club's youth ranks.
The rest of the squad, with Gerard Pique, Andres Iniesta, Ivan Rakitic and new signings Samuel Umtiti and Lucas Digne among those absent having played at Euro 2016 this summer, will join up their team-mates once their holidays are over.
The Spanish champions, who already used St George's Park in 2014, will spend five days training at the £105million facility before flying to Dublin for the International Champions Cup match against Celtic.
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