Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez head Barcelona 23-man squad to face Liverpool

Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez are ready to lead Barcelona's weekend trip to Wembley ahead of the International Champions Cup game with Liverpool on Saturday (6 August). The two South American aces have been included by manager Luis Enrique in a 23-man squad with a lot of new faces and only one unexpected absentee in Jordi Alba, who will miss the encounter due to illness.

Samuel Umtiti and Andre Gomes remain on holidays after the two new signings reached the Euro 2016 final with France and Portugual respectively while Neymar and Rafihna Alcantara will also miss the game as they are featuring at the Rio Olympics with Brazil.

The La Liga and the Copa del Rey Champions beat Leicester City 4-2 on Wednesday, having previously opened their pre-season with a 3-1 victory over Celtic.

Messi and Suarez already played their part in those games after the Argentine cut his holidays short in order to be fully fit for the start of the 2016-2017 campaign, with Barcelona facing Sevilla in the Spanish Super Cup in a double tie on 12 and 15 August before their La Liga opener against Real Betis on 20 August.

Luis Enrique played the attacking duo alongside Munir and a number of other youngsters as most of the Barcelona first-team squad who played at Euro 2016 had extended holidays.

However, majority of them have since returned to training and Barcelona has now confirmed they will be in line to face Liverpool.

Hence Marc Andre Ter Stegen, Claudio Bravo, Gerard Pique, Ivan Rakitic, Andres Iniesta and Thomas Vermaelen have all been included in the squad for the first time in pre-season fixtures together with new summer signing Lucas Digne. However, Jordi Alba will miss the trip to London due to illness while Luis Enrique has named three members of the second team; Juan Camara, Rafa Mujica and Jesus Alfaro to complete his 23-man squad.