Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola yesterday said he was confident that the club’s French defender Eric Abidal will return to the pitch after a scheduled liver transplant, calling the player “irreplaceable”.

But the internationally-renowned head of Spain’s organ transplant service expressed doubts that the 32-year-old would be able to play top-flight football, given the risks of injury.

Guardiola, though, was thinking positively, telling a post-training session news conference: “He knows he has all our support because he is much-loved.

“What really matters right now is to find a solution to this illness so he can get on with his life.

“He has to fight and he will do it. I am sure he will return. Not having him available to play is not what is important. He is irreplaceable for us. We don’t have a substitute. He gives us an infinite range of possibilities.”

Barcelona announced on Thursday that Abidal would have a liver translant “in the coming weeks”, nearly a year after the player had a tumor removed from the same organ.

The club did not give any indication of how long he would be out of action but the operation puts him in doubt for the French team in the June 8-July 1 Euro 2012 finals in Poland and Ukraine.

Organ transplant specialist Rafael Matesanz had earlier told the Marca newspaper that it would be “very difficult” for Abidal to play again.