Barcelona captain Sergio Busquets has urged his teammates to get used to playing without Lionel Messi. The star striker finally moved away from the club after Barcelona could not re-sign him due to LA Liga obligations despite the fact he was ready to play with a 50% salary cut.
Messi then went on to sign with PSG Saint-Germain, ending his glorious career of 16 seasons at Blaugrana. On the other hand, Barcelona savored great success when Messi was with the club but now the team has to move forward without their big player.
Busquets said as quoted by Reuters, “It was a shock given everything Leo did for Barca and for me. We felt a number of sensations that were difficult to digest but we have to try and move on. We’re only at the start of the season and we have to get used to playing without Leo.”
Meanwhile, Barcelona will host Bayern Munich in their first match of the Champions League this season. Barca had faced an ignominious defeat of 8-2 when both teams had clashed on the previous occasion in the tournament.
Bayern Munich will enter the contest as favorites but Busquets is not ruling his team out.
“We’ve had to deal with some difficult situations in the last year with a lot of changes at all levels of the club and he [Koeman] was brought here to make those changes and has had a big impact.”
“Anything can happen in football. Chelsea won the competition last season when they weren’t favorites at the start.”
On the other hand, Ronald Koeman’s team has got off to a decent start in LA Liga as they have won two matches and one has ended in a draw.