Lionel Messi exited Inter Miami\u2019s Leagues Cup match against Necaxa on Saturday night after suffering an apparent hamstring injury in the opening minutes.<\/p>\n
After the match that Inter Miami<\/a> won in a penalty shootout, coach Javier Mascherano indicated that Messi would undergo testing on Sunday to determine the severity of the injury.<\/p>\n \u201cHe felt discomfort,\u201d Mascherano said through an interpreter. \u201cWe will not be able to know until tomorrow how severe the injury is. There\u2019s probably something there. He was not in pain, but he did feel a pull.\u201d<\/p>\n Messi was injured around the eighth minute when he fell while being challenged by a pair of defenders near the penalty area. He fell to the ground and slammed his fist in frustration before walking toward midfield as play continued.<\/p>\n He walked slowly toward the Inter Miami bench before sitting down on the pitch. Trainers came out and worked on his right upper thigh area for a couple of minutes before he subbed out for Federico Redondo in the 11th and immediately walked to the locker room.<\/p>\n Messi has dealt with numerous hamstring injuries throughout his career and has missed time over the past couple of seasons dealing with various leg injuries \u2014 the most recent issue was with his left adductor, which sidelined him for a pair of Argentina\u2019s World Cup qualifiers earlier this year.<\/p>\n The injury puts his status for Inter Miami\u2019s next Leagues Cup match in jeopardy. The Herons take on Pumas UNAM on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Mascherano has been tasked with managing Messi\u2019s packed workload all season.<\/p>\n The 38-year-old star was experiencing fatigue late last month and skipped the MLS<\/a> All-Star game, which led to a one-match suspension by the league for violating its rules on participation in the exhibition match.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Soccer with Jonathan Wilson<\/p>\n Jonathan Wilson brings expert analysis on the biggest stories from European soccer<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Messi was unavailable for Inter Miami\u2019s match against Cincinnati on 26 July, which allowed him a bit of rest.<\/p>\n \u201cHe is someone who would rather play than rest,\u201d Mascherano said on Friday, adding that Messi would tell the team if he is experiencing fatigue.<\/p>\n \u201cClearly, we talk about the situation and we manage it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it has to be a conversation with the player. They know where they can push their body and up to which point they can\u2019t. Leo is a special case. . \u2026 Perhaps if you make him rest, he feels worse. If we see a red flag or a risk, we aim to speak to the players.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi exited Inter Miami\u2019s Leagues Cup match against Necaxa on Saturday night after suffering an apparent hamstring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-40797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}