Messi in action for Supercopa de Espana as Koeman pushes for a trophy

Lionel Messi

will make an appearance for

in the Supercopa de Espana semi-final clash against

and

Ronald Koeman

is pushing for his first trophy as a coach. The Blaugrana manager admits Lionel Messi has “discomfort” after his side’s thumping 4-0 victory

, with the Argentina international scoring a brace. It was their third consecutive win in

, being unbeaten in their last eight matches since losing to Juventus on December 8.

Barcelona finding their feet has coincided with Messi enjoying the game again, as he netted seven goals and set up two more in his past seven matches.

During his last 10 league matches, the Barca star has only met the back of the net four times, proving he wasn’t focused as he was thinking about his departure.

"

There are several players with discomfort, one of them is Messi, that is why we withdrew him in Granada,

" Koeman said.

"

It seems that everyone is available for tomorrow, also [Ronald] Araujo, although a preparatory session is missing. It is a match against a strong team and we can take the next step.

"The team is better offensively; we have more players coming from the middle of the field. We have players in attack who do damage, and defensively the team is working well. We have gained in confidence.

"Lately the team is focused on every game - we have improved in this regard. When we don't have the ball, the team is quite compact. We are improving our game.

"Midfield players give us a lot of threat, but at the beginning of the season we already played with Messi as a false nine. The difference is that the team is more confident and we find free men between the lines."

The clash against La Real is going to be Koeman’s first semi-final managing a club, with the winner locking horns with either

or

in the final

"

For us it is important, Barca is made to win. It is not the most important trophy, but we have to play the semi-final and we will give our best,"

he said. "

We will play with our best team to be in the final. We want to take the first step to reach it.

"I don't think that winning the trophy means being better. Soccer is fickle and things can change quickly. It [winning the trophy] would give us confidence, of course, but we have to go step by step, the first thing is to win the semi-final against Real Sociedad."

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