For the second consecutive year, a hamstring injury will probably hold Lionel Messi on the sidelines for the visit of Inter Miami on Saturday evening to Washington to be confronted against DC United.
After missing two games at the beginning of this month, Messi returned to a replacement role last weekend, scored the Go-Ahead goal and assisted with another count in a 3-1 victory at home at the Los Angeles Galaxy.
But Wednesday in Miami’s 2-1 Leagues Cup quarterfinals victory over Tigres Uanl, Messi looked out of the suites on the field and took care of his again injured Hamstring.
Messi’s injury is another disappointment for fans in DC, who had a chance to see the Argentinian superstar in March 2024, also because of a hamstring injury.
Despite missing five games, Messi leads the Major League Soccer (MLS) -in goals with 19 to go along with his 10 assists.
With Messi put aside, Miami (13-5-6, 45 points) will depend on Luis Suarez (six goals, 11 assists), who scored both goals against Tigres on Wednesday.
After scoring 20 goals last season, Suarez struggled this year.
«I don’t understand how people can criticize him because the amount of work he does for the team is insane,» said Yannick Bright of Miami. «It’s still Luis Suarez. It is still one of the greatest strikers of all time.»
On Saturday, DC (4-15-8, 20 points) will play his second game under the new coach Rene Weiler. In his debut last weekend, DC CF Montreal played to a 1-1 draw.
The teams are at the bottom of the classification of the Eastern Conference.
«It was a good game. At least we earned that one point,» said Weiler, who has a difficult task because Saturday’s game opens a series of six directly to teams with winning records.
The draw extended the line of DC without a victory to 10 games (0-8-2). The team has surrendered more goals (52) than any team in the Eastern Conference and scored less (23) than any team in the MLS.
DC will look for a spark of his top threats, Christian Benteke (eight goals) and Gabriel Pirani (four goals, three assists).
Published on August 23, 2025
