Lionel Messi is dealing with muscle fatigue in his left hamstring less than three weeks before the \u200bstart of the World Cup, Inter Miami said \u200con Monday after the Argentine forward was forced off in his final club match before the tournament.<\/p>\n
Messi, 38, left Sunday\u2019s 6-4 Major \u200bLeague Soccer victory over the Philadelphia Union in \u200bthe 73rd minute after clutching the back of \u2060his thigh following a free kick.
\n“After undergoing further medical \u200btests this Monday, the initial diagnosis indicates an overload associated \u200bwith muscle fatigue in his left hamstring,” Inter Miami said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“The timeline for his return to physical activity will depend \u200bon his clinical and functional progress.”
\nInter Miami coach Guillermo \u200bHoyos had downplayed the issue after the match, saying Messi appeared \u200cfatigued \u2060after playing on a “heavy” pitch.<\/p>\n
Major League Soccer is now pausing for the World Cup, which will be co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico from June 11 to \u200bJuly 19.<\/p>\n
Argentina \u200bcoach Lionel \u2060Scaloni included eight-times Ballon d’Or winner Messi in a provisional 55-man squad announced earlier this \u200bmonth, ahead of the defending champions\u2019 opening \u200bmatch \u2060against Algeria in Kansas City on June 16.<\/p>\n
Messi captained Argentina to their third World Cup title in Qatar in 2022 \u2060and \u200bis expected to lead the team \u200bagain in what could be his sixth appearance at the tournament.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14870,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-35419","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Major League Soccer is now pausing for the World Cup","published_date":"","news_description":"Major League Soccer is now pausing for the World Cup","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35420,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35419\/revisions\/35420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=35419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}