Ivan Rakitić crossing his fingers for Lionel Messi and Gerard Piqué | OneFootball

Barcelona midfielder Ivan Rakitić is praying Lionel Messi and Gerard Piqué will have recovered from their respective injuries in time to face Real Madrid on Wednesday.

Messi suffered a thigh problem and Piqué suffered a cut to the head during Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Valencia, leaving both players’ participation in the upcoming cup Clásico in doubt.

But while Rakitić says Piqué’s injury is “nothing” it seems he’s a little more concerned about Messi.

“We hope more doubles come,” he said in reference to Messi’s brace against Valencia.

“It’s a shame he [Messi] ended the game suffering a bit. We hope it’s nothing, like for Piqué, because we have very interesting games coming up.”

Barcelona came from 2-0 down to salvage a point at Camp Nou on Saturday night and Rakitić admitted afterwards that “the first half hour wasn’t the best”.

“We showed character and we dominated the second half completely,” added the Croatian.

“Sometimes it seems we were playing basketball around their box, but in the end we couldn’t do it.

“It’s not easy to play a Valencia side who came with a lot of confidence for their results from recent weeks who played tightly in defence.

“They waited to counter us and didn’t take too many risks, but we worked hard.”