'Very low standard' - Aston Villa starlet & current Wrexham rival Louie Barry opens up on training with Lionel Messi & Luis Suarez during brief Barcelona spell

Having caught the eye in West Brom’s academy system, Barry’s potential was snapped up by La Liga giants Barca in 2019. He would retrace steps to England a matter of months later, as Aston Villa returned him to his West Midlands roots in January 2020, but memories of his spell in Catalunya will last a lifetime.

Barry figured for Barcelona’s U19 side, scoring on his debut, and got to rub shoulders with a couple of iconic forwards when being asked to join a first-team training session. Barry has told Sky Sports: “Messi and Suarez were there, yeah. I trained once with them, but it was a very low standard – it was a set-piece kind of thing. I got called up from the B team. But ‘I’ve trained with Messi’, I can say that.”

Barry was focused on unlocking his own potential at that time, but admits that he could not pass up the opportunity to grab the odd selfie with legendary club colleagues. He added: “I have got a few photos with them – Suarez, Messi, on my phone. It was just like ‘can I have a photo?’ and they say ‘yeah’. Obviously you have to stay professional when you’re in a work mode, but when they are away from it and I’m there looking, they were really good. A lot of the lads asked for photos and they were great with it.”

Villa have handed Barry one competitive appearance to date, with the youngster scoring in an FA Cup clash with Liverpool in January 2021 that saw the Villans lose 10 players to positive Covid-19 tests. Now 21 years of age, the promising forward is currently enjoying a second loan spell at Stockport – having helped them to pip Wrexham to the League Two title last season.