Soccer-Barcelona's Yamal sidelined again with groin injury, to miss Spain's World Cup qualifiers

Barcelona's Lamine Yamal will be sidelined for "two to three weeks" after aggravating a groin injury, the club announced on Friday.

The 18-year-old winger, who had been called up for Spain's World Cup qualifying matches against Georgia and Bulgaria next week, will not be part of the national team squad after the issue flared up following Wednesday's 2-1 Champions League loss to Paris St Germain. This latest setback resurrects an injury saga that has already seen Yamal miss four games this season. He originally sustained the injury during September's international break when Spain faced Turkey and Bulgaria, igniting a spat between club and country.

Barcelona manager Hansi Flick told the media that the Spain team "should take better care of players", comments that clearly rankled Spain coach Luis de la Fuente. De la Fuente fired back on Friday, saying he "was surprised by the German manager's comments, given that (Flick) is a manager who has also coached a national team and I thought he would have had more empathy (with a colleague)."

The timing is particularly cruel for Yamal, who had just returned from his previous three-week layoff to help Barcelona beat Real Sociedad last weekend before playing the full 90 minutes against PSG. "The groin problem for Lamine Yamal has returned following the game against PSG. The player will miss (Sunday's) game against Sevilla and his recovery time is estimated at 2-3 weeks," Barcelona said in a statement.

Yamal has managed five appearances for Barca this season, scoring two goals.

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