Lionel Messi is 36 years old this year. He could no longer maintain good physical strength and was constantly injured. Therefore, the Argentine team can hardly rely on M10 at Copa America 2024.
“Lionel Messi’s thigh injury is quite complicated. Inter Miami’s medical department must check him every week”, coach Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino shared. That revelation made Argentine football lovers extremely worried. In Inter Miami’s 3-1 win a few days ago against host DC United, M10 was not on the registration list.
On March 17, coach Lionel Scaloni also announced the Argentina national team call-up list to prepare for two upcoming matches against El Salvador and Costa Rica. Messi of course could not participate, due to not having time to recover from his injury. This is very alarming for the Tango team, when Copa America 2024 is less than 3 months away from starting.
According to coach Martino of Inter Miami, Messi always feels pain in his right leg every time he plays with high intensity. The situation is getting worse and worse. It is known that after being absent from the match against Montreal on March 11, he had to be injected with painkillers to try to get on the field in the home team’s confrontation with rival Nashville. According to journalist Michelle Kaufman of the Miami Herald, if this “difficult case” is not handled well, M10 may soon have to announce its retirement.
Messi has recently continuously made fans worried about his health condition. After joining Inter Miami last July and continuously working hard to help the team win the 2023 Concacaf League Cup, he was overloaded and often struggled with injuries. Despite a long period of rest before the new season, it feels like M10’s physical condition has not improved much.
Messi is 36 years old this year. At that age, it was completely normal for him to no longer maintain good physical strength. If not, perhaps the owner of 8 Golden Ball titles would have chosen to continue playing football in Europe instead of venturing to America. But Messi’s instability can seriously affect Argentina’s plan to conquer the Copa America 2024.
At the soccer tournament that will take place in the United States this summer (from June 20 to July 14), Argentina is in Group A with rivals Peru, Chile and a representative of Concacaf (undetermined). ). Coach Scaloni and his team participated in the tournament as the defending champions.
As captain, Messi has become the inspiration to lead Argentina to the 2022 World Cup championship taking place in Qatar. That was the tournament where he was voted “Best Player”. However, in an interview after reaching the top of the world, M10 shared that he did not think he had enough physical strength to participate in the next World Cup with the Tango team.
