Miami (AFP) – Lionel Messi, who has sat out Inter Miami’s last three games, will travel to Jamaica for Thursday’s CONCACAF Champions Cup match with Kingston side Cavalier, coach Javier Mascherano said on Wednesday. Messi missed Inter’s 4-1 win at the Houston Dynamo in Major League Soccer on March 2 and then the 2-0 midweek home win over Cavalier in the first leg of the last-16 tie against the Jamaicans. The Argentine then sat unused on the bench for Sunday’s 1-0 win over Charlotte in MLS, with Mascherano saying the caution over using the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner was based on managing his workload and not an injury.
Speaking to the media before the team flew out to the Caribbean island nation, Mascherano, a former team-mate of Messi’s at Barcelona, said the forward would be making the trip. “Leo Messi is on the roster and will travel with the team to Jamaica. Tomorrow (Thursday) we will decide for the game what is best, if he starts or waits on the bench and comes in later,” he said. “Today he trained with the team, and the sensations were good. We’re happy he’ll travel with us to Jamaica,” he added.
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The game is expected to attract a sell-out crowd to the 35,000 capacity National Stadium in Kingston. While Messi has faced Jamaica’s national team for Argentina, he has never played in the nation before. Cavalier head coach and sporting director Rudolph Speid believes his team are capable of turning around the tie against a team that will include former Barca players Jordi Alba, Sergio Busquets, and Luis Suarez. “It is about normalising the Inter Miami team so that our players are comfortable playing against players with such high esteem,” Speid explained.
“Jordi Alba is 35 years old but he runs up and down like he thinks he is 25. Sergio Busquets is a brilliant player — it is very difficult to take the ball off him when he has it under control. And Lionel Messi, I don’t even have to say anything,” he told the Jamaican Gleaner.
© 2024 AFP
