Barcelona hope virus will pass and they can play Arsenal on Wednesday

As president Joan Laporta explained on Saturday, the cancellation of Barcelona's first pre-season friendly "is a blow". But now that the game against Juventus in Santa Clara has been cancelled, Barça hope that Xavi's side will be able to play Arsenal in Los Angeles on the July 26.

For the moment, the outbreak of gastroenteritis that has affected between 12 and 14 players and which forced Barça to stay in Los Angeles on Saturday and not travel to play Juve does not seem to have gone any further during the day, although no one can say for sure that there will be no more cases or what the recovery of the affected players will be like.

Barça were not scheduled to train on Sunday and are sticking to their plans, having announced their next session in the United States for 10 o'clock in the morning Los Angeles time on Monday. Some players are expected to recover this Sunday and the healthy ones could do some work at the hotel.

On Saturday, the players who were not affected by the virus trained at the LA Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles to continue their pre-season under the orders of Xavi, who has seen how his plans have been somewhat disrupted.

Still to come

The situation will be analysed as the hours go by, but Barça are confident that the tour of the United States will go ahead and that they will be able to play the three remaining matches. Against Arsenal in Los Angeles on July 26, against Real Madrid in Dallas on July 29 and against Milan in Las Vegas on August 1.