Major League Soccer suspended Lionel Messi and Jordi Alba for Inter Miami’s meeting with FC Cincinnati on Saturday after they controversially missed Wednesday’s MLS All-Star Game.<\/p>\n
The league revealed<\/a> on the day of the match against Liga MX All-Stars that the pair wouldn’t play despite being voted onto the roster by fans and media, leading to speculation that MLS would ban them for one match.<\/p>\n Miami head coach Javier Mascherano announced Friday that Messi and Alba returned to training in anticipation of Saturday’s match against FC Cincinnati. However, MLS belatedly punished the former Barcelona players.<\/p>\n “Per league rules, any player who does not participate in the All-Star Game without prior approval from the league is ineligible to compete in their club’s next match,” MLS said in a statement.<\/p>\n MLS commissioner Don Garber said the league would look into changing the policy of suspending players who skip future All-Star Games and declared that “nobody has done more for Major League Soccer than Lionel Messi.”<\/p>\n “His decision (not to attend) is not one that I really can argue with whatsoever, and I understand it,” Garber added in a phone interview with The Athletic’s Paul Tenorio<\/a>. “But unfortunately, we have a longstanding policy relating to player participation in the All-Star Game, and we had to enforce that policy.<\/p>\n “It was a very, very difficult decision, but one I hope both (Messi) and everyone else can understand and respect. He has shown up for his club, for his teammates, for our league time and time again, and I respect his decision.”<\/p>\n Mascherano said Messi missed the showpiece game in Austin, Texas, due to fatigue, while Alba was reportedly dealing with a knock suffered in the team’s 5-1 road win against the New York Red Bulls last Saturday.<\/p>\n “Look, players always have discomfort, especially when they play every three days. But luckily, (Messi) is returning today,” Mascherano said, according to ESPN’s Lizzy Becherano<\/a>. “Let’s hope he can train alongside the group so we can count on both of them for tomorrow’s game.”<\/p>\n Mascherano added before MLS suspended the two stars: “We haven’t received any (sanction).”<\/p>\n Mascherano also voiced his support for the All-Star Game but suggested holding it on a weekend to allow players more rest.<\/p>\n The MLS All-Stars beat their Liga MX counterparts 3-1<\/a> on Wednesday. Nashville SC’s Sam Surridge, Philadelphia Union’s Tai Baribo, and Vancouver Whitecaps’ Brian White scored for MLS. Club Tijuana’s Gilberto Mora<\/a> netted Liga MX’s goal to become the youngest scorer in MLS All-Star Game history at 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Major League Soccer suspended Lionel Messi and Jordi Alba for Inter Miami’s meeting with FC Cincinnati on Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-24010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}