Kolo Toure might just be getting a baptism of fire on his Celtic debut.
According to Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers, the Hoops' new signing will likely make his debut for the club during a friendly with Barcelona in Dublin on Saturday.
Toure wouldn't have been overly panicked with that revelation for two reasons. 1 - Non-competitive fixtures don't really hold all that much significance and 2 - Lionel Messi was on holidays.
The Catalan club revealed last week that Messi would not be taking part in Barcelona's pre-season tour as he was still relaxing after Argentina's exploits in the Copa America Centenario in June.
https://twitter.com/FCBarcelona/status/756931404689276929?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
But, according to an update from Barcelona, the Ballon d'Or holder has cut his holiday short and decided to rejoin his club teammates for pre-season training next week.
Messi will train at St George's Park on Monday and while there's no guarantee that he'll feature against Celtic on Saturday, it wouldn't be surprising to see him get a run out due to the fact that he'll be in attendance.
Toure will not be tasked with a more difficult job in his career than keeping Messi quiet and the Ivorian will be hopeful that the little Magician is still in holiday mode and not in his usual putting-defenders-on-their-arse mode.
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