Lionel Messi Injury: Inter Miami forward to miss upcoming Argentina friendlies through injury

Argentina will be without their superstar as a Lionel Messi injury means the Inter Miami forward will not play the upcoming international friendlies.

La Albiceleste are scheduled to play El Salvador on March 23, before facing Costa Rica on March 27, with Messi set to miss both.

Lionel Messi Injury: Extent & possible return date

Lionel Messi last featured for Inter Miami in the team’s 3-1 win against Nashville in the second leg of the CONCACAF Champions Cup. The Argentine scored and assisted in that game, having scored in the 2-2 draw in the first leg as well.

However, Messi was entirely omitted from Inter Miami’s matchday squad to travel to Washington D.C. for their last game. Leonardo Campana started up front in place of Messi and even grabbed a goal. Now, South American outlet Sudanalytics has reported that he will miss Argentina’s two upcoming friendlies.

Whether this is precaution or whether a Lionel Messi injury is set to keep him out of action for a considerable amount of time remains to be seen. As of now, there is no specific return date or timeline for his recovery that his club have released.

Inter Miami’s next two games are against NY Red Bulls (A) and NY City (H) on March 23 and 31 respectively. The Argentine will face a race against time to be fit for those games.

Argentina’s record over the last few months

Since lifting the prestigious FIFA World Cup trophy in 2022, Argentina have played just 10 games across competitions. They have won nine of those and lost just one – a 2-0 defeat against Uruguay.

In those 10 games, La Albiceleste scored a remarkable 21 goals and conceded just two. In fact, the game they lost was the only game they conceded in, keeping clean sheets in all other nine games.

Lionel Scaloni’s men also hold the top spot in FIFA’s latest World Rankings with 1855.2 points, and are ahead of France (1845.44) and England (1800.05). With the Copa America scheduled to be held in June-July later this year, Argentina will hope they can continue their stellar run of form until the tournament rolls around.

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