The Catalan left-back had been a shoo-in for the UEFA Super Cup, but he will now be sidelined instead. This news leaves Luis Enrique short of options on both sides of defence. Douglas has also been ruled out, Adriano faces a fitness race - he will probably be cleared to make the trip to Georgia, but will likely be more than a tad rusty - and Aleix Vidal is ineligible until the FIFA ban expires in January.
The upshot is that Luis Enrique currently only has two fully fit, natural full-backs available for the clash against Sevilla. Jérémy Mathieu is in line to start on the left, with Dani Alves on the right. Despite Sergi Roberto's commendable efforts at right-back in pre-season, throwing the midfielder-by-trade in at the deep end in a game of this magnitude would be a surprisingly cavalier move on the coach's part. As such, all the Asturian can do is cross his fingers, touch wood and pray that there are no further physical problems in his full-back department.
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