5 Barcelona stars to return to training next week

Five leading members of the first-team ranks at La Liga giants Barcelona have been scheduled to return to the club for pre-season training next week.

That’s according to Diario AS, who have provided an insight into the latest developments behind the scenes in Catalunya’s capital.

New Barcelona head coach Hansi Flick, for his part, has been forced to work with something of a threadbare squad across his first couple of weeks of pre-season.

This comes with the bulk of the Blaugrana’s most high-profile players having been called up for international duty by their respective countries this summer.

With both the European Championships and Copa América having now come to a close, however, an imminent influx of stars is now on the cards in Barcelona.

And leading the way next Monday, according to AS, will be the pairing of Robert Lewandowski, and Andreas Christensen.

Then, later in the week, all of Marc-André ter Stegen, Jules Koundé and İlkay Gündoğan will follow suit.

The plan, in turn, is for all five to join Hansi Flick’s squad on their upcoming tour of the USA.

Conor Laird | GSFN