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Barcelona are still licking their wounds from Lionel Messi's painful departure to Paris Saint-Germain and it seems that fans have little enthusiasm for the new season without their greatest ever player.

Fans are so disinterested for the new campaign that only 15,820 fans applied for tickets for Sunday's first home game of the LaLiga season against Real Sociedad, only half of the 30,000 seats made available.

The low ticket sales are all the more striking when you consider this will be fans' first chance to return to the Nou Camp in 17 months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Barca's last competitive game in front of fans was in fact also against Real Sociedad, on March 7, 2020, when Messi scored a late penalty in a 1-0 win.

Even as stories of the coronavirus spreading across Europe grew, few fans could have imagined that would be the last time they would set foot in the stadium for over a year, while even fewer would have thought it would be the last time they would see Messi in action in a Barca shirt.

One of the most striking images since Messi left was the sight of the Argentine's picture being removed from the front of the Nou Camp.