Lionel Messi was left out of Inter Miami’s matchday squad as the team was held to a goalless draw with Charlotte FC in Saturday’s MLS regular-season match at Bank of America Stadium.
The Argentine captain played for Inter Miami on Wednesday night against Nashville SC in the first leg of the Concacaf Champions Cup round of 16, drawing 0-0 at GEODIS Park. Messi played the entire match and Miami made the decision to rest him on Saturday ahead of Wednesday’s second leg with Nashville.
In his place, veteran Uruguayan striker Luis Suárez made his first start of the season.
Messi’s Miami and Argentina teammate Rodrigo De Paul was also absent from both the starting lineup and the substitutes’ bench.
“These are decisions we have to make as a coaching staff,” Miami assistant coach Javier Morales told reporters afterward.
“We’ve been playing a lot of games lately — Wednesdays, Saturdays — and we have a very important home game coming up, so Javier and the coaching staff thought it was the best decision. It was a collective decision.”
Morales was handling postgame media duties as a result of Mascherano being sent off in stoppage time after receiving two yellow cards in quick succession from the referee.
“I think there was a misunderstanding, because Mascherano was talking to one of the players and he was a little bit out of the box, but the referee, in my opinion, was too sensitive,” Morales said.
“When you play these kinds of games, away with a lot of kids in the game, you need to coach. Javier was with a lot of energy on the sidelines. Unfortunately, he got a red card.”
Messi and De Paul both formed part of the previous Inter Miami squad that played at Bank of America Stadium in September 2025, when the team fell 3-0 in Charlotte.
The stadium’s artificial grass did not play a decisive role in Mascherano’s game-day squad that day, with Messi, Jordi Alba, Sergio Busquets and De Paul all featuring in the regular season match.
Miami will now look to refocus as it seeks to reach the Concacaf Champions Cup quarterfinals.
Though Mascherano previously admitted the competition is a priority for Inter Miami, the coach has insisted he will be treating all competitions equally throughout the year.
“We’re not a team that chooses which competitions to play in; we’re obligated to compete in all of them,” he said earlier this week. “Clearly, the Champions League is the only competition the club normally plays in that we’re missing, and it’s generating a lot of excitement for all of us.
“Now, what we can’t allow is for this to become an obsession. It’s one thing to be excited, another to be obsessed.”
Saturday’s result left last year’s MLS Cup winners with seven points from four games to start the 2026 season.
