Los Angeles — Following LAFCThe third goal on Saturday night, which sent most of the more than 75,600 people in attendance at the L.A. Coliseum into a frenzy, with a fan argentina Jersey reached the field and immediately ran towards it inter miami supper star Lionel Messi.
The scene is common for any event involving the 2022 World Cup winner, but this time the celebratory music was not for them as Miami ended up losing 3-0. Indeed, in Messi’s first official game of 2026 with the reigning MLS Cup champions, the early pages of the Hollywood script being written for him in another World Cup year did not go exactly to plan.
ahead of saturday’s marquee of MLS Opening-weekend match against son hyung-minAfter LAFC, there was doubt that Messi would participate he suffered a hamstring injury During Miami’s preseason friendly in February.
At the age of 38, it was fair to not only be concerned about the start of the MLS season, but also wonder if this could point to issues at this summer’s World Cup. After all, Messi has not yet committed 100% to this summer’s tournament with Argentina and has been honest about making his fitness a factor.
“I would like to be there. I would feel good if I was there and be an important part of helping my national team.” Messi said in October. “When I start the preseason with Inter next year I’m going to assess it on a day-by-day basis [Miami] And see if I can really be 100%. I’m really curious because it’s the World Cup.”
But, although Miami head coach Javier Mascherano confirmed on Friday that the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner was “training all week at the same level as the rest of the team,” Miami’s No. 10 missed his game against LAFC.
During the first 10 minutes, Messi’s touch seemed unexpectedly wrong, as did the timing of his passes. His distribution eventually improved and he was unlucky enough not to get an assist, but the same could not be said for his shooting as he was unable to find the target even once.
Messi was also not alone. Was it a matter of adjusting to the new striker German Bertram On top of that, or its captain’s play was not quite perfect, Miami was not able to gain much momentum until LAFC took a 1–0 lead via a goal. david martinez Which was helped by Son.
33 year old south korea The international has his own aspirations ahead of the World Cup after leaving Tottenham Hotspur Last year, and at one of Messi’s matches, what was striking was how many LAFC supporters — who had plenty of them sporting jerseys with their son’s name on them — far outnumbered those wearing the pink kit of arguably the greatest soccer player of all time.
When Messi had the ball at his feet, he did not get any tremendous excitement. In fact, at one point when he took the field at the end of the game and did not earn a foul, a cheer erupted from countless supporters at the LA Coliseum.
“No, no, no, I didn’t see anything,” Mascherano said after the match when asked if his captain seemed angry with the referee’s decision or the result in general. “The truth is that the match ended and then I went to the locker room.”
goals following from dennis bounga And nathan ordaz This sealed a 3–0 defeat for Miami; after the final whistle, Messi immediately exchanged jerseys with Bouanga and then quickly walked off the field.
So is it too early to be nervous about Messi’s Miami after one loss?
Mascherano later said, “The reality is that they beat us fairly, that’s true.” “I think it’s often difficult to explain when you lose 3-0, but from my initial analysis I think the result was somewhat misleading. The game, as it turned out, wasn’t that much of a difference.
“As a coaching staff, we have to analyze the game and not just the result, because if we only focus on the result, we are only making decisions based on winning or losing. I think in the game, we saw aspects of the style of play that we want, that we need to improve.”
Messi will need to improve, but to be fair to him, we shouldn’t move an inch or run a mile after his first game this year. Mascherano recently said the 38-year-old was healthy enough to return to full-team training, but the forward was recently recovering from a hamstring injury, so it’s no big shock that he was a little off the pace.
It is foolish to doubt Messi and his performance on Saturday was not bad at all. In fact, he provided some dangerous passes that should have led to at least one goal for Miami, and also did well to move the ball forward at times.
It was a good game, but you don’t expect decent from Messi, especially during a World Cup year. It is too early to make any long-term decisions, but questions will start being asked if the script doesn’t change in the next month or so.
Argentina boss Lionel Scaloni said in December about whether Messi would be at the World Cup, “He will decide and we will support whatever decision he makes.” “Theoretically, everything is going well, but six months is a long time. There is still time.”
Four months left, the clock is ticking.
