FCBARCELONA.CAT

27.08.2008 19:07

Messi rejoins his team-mates

Berta Brau/Anna Segura

Having qualified for the group stages of the Champions League, Pep Guardiola's FC Barcelona squad returned to training on Wednesday afternoon and were joined by Lionel Messi for the first time since his participation in the Olympic Games.

Following the defeat in the second leg of the European encounter with Wisla on Tuesday, the Blaugrana were back training and have already turned their attention to the first league game of the season against Numancia next Sunday. Now that Champions League qualification has been taken care of, all eyes are now set on making a good start in la Primera.

Reunion with Messi

One of the main events of the training on Wednesday evening has been Messi's appearance with his team-mates. The Argentinian returned from Beijing at teh start of the week and had to train alone while the rest of the squad were in Poland.

Recovery for the starting players

The session was used to allow the players that began the game against Wisla to warm down and go through their paces to recover. After starting out all together with some light jogging, the players all that broke into smaller groups to work on more individual tings.

Specific work

Carles Puyol, Seydou Keita, Samuel Eto'o, Thierry Henry, Gerard Piqué, Dani Alves, Andrés Iniesta and Éric Abidal did sprinting and jogging, while the rest of the players played ball games. Iniesta then moved to one side and was able to work on his own recovery programme away from the squad.

Cuéllar’s visit

During the session former Barça player, Ángel Cuéllar, turned up to watch the session and the squad went over to greet him. Cuellar played for the Blaugrana alonside Guardiola between 1995 and 1997.