{"id":293946,"date":"2025-10-11T06:17:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T06:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/293946\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T06:17:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T06:17:10","slug":"lionel-messi-sits-out-argentina-win-over-venezuela-in-miami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/293946\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi sits out Argentina win over Venezuela in Miami"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"892f805f-fef9-c22d-8f87-ba08b1b4d256\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=202\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Argentina<\/a> national team, playing without <a data-player-guid=\"dc5f8d51-332b-0ab2-b4b0-c97efdc624e0\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/45843\/lionel-messi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lionel Messi<\/a>, beat <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"fc54fd66-314f-b58b-b5c1-e00b62e382c2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=213\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Venezuela<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/matchstats\/_\/gameId\/758378\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1-0<\/a> on Friday in a friendly at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.<\/p>\n<p>Messi was at the stadium watching the match from the stands with his family.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/story\/_\/id\/46553756\/argentina-vs-puerto-rico-moved-miami-chicago\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/r1558351_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/story\/_\/id\/46527957\/lionel-messi-fitness-argentina-vs-venezuela-puerto-rico-lionel-scaloni\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/r1557299_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>1 Related<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I decided that Leo [Messi] would not play,&#8221; said Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We wanted to try Lautaro [Martinez] and Julian [Alvarez] and had Jose Manuel Lopez on the bench. I thought it was a valid option. In the end, Flaco [Jose Manuel Lopez] couldn&#8217;t enter the game, so he&#8217;ll enter the next one. But it was my decision, simply that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Despite his absence, La Albiceleste triumphed against Venezuela with a lone goal by <a data-player-guid=\"972d1648-b703-f9c4-cefc-b5bbc182fdb3\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/174466\/giovani-lo-celso\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Giovani Lo Celso<\/a> after connecting with teammate <a data-player-guid=\"f2d92beb-5b82-65be-f72a-6f6efd6b0560\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/174466\/lautaro-martinez\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lautaro Mart\u00ednez<\/a> to find the back of the net. Argentina managed to dominate in the final third to record 19 shots, 11 on target, against the South American rival.<\/p>\n<p>When asked if Messi would be available to feature in the team&#8217;s upcoming friendly against Puerto Rico on October 14, Scaloni remained hopeful.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s hope Messi can be there on Tuesday, we&#8217;ll see how things unfold in the coming days.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Messi&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/club\/_\/id\/20232\/inter-miami-cf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Inter Miami<\/a> teammate <a data-player-guid=\"9e710eea-4799-aa8f-9fca-dcbffea68a47\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/174466\/rodrigo-de-paul\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rodrigo De Paul<\/a> began the game on the bench for Argentina, substituting in the second half for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/club\/_\/id\/1068\/atletico-madrid\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Atl\u00e9tico Madrid<\/a> star <a data-player-guid=\"0d838476-2120-cb34-db2f-a09e1c213769\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/277206\/julian-alvarez\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Juli\u00e1n \u00c1lvarez<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/>Lionel Messi witnessed Argentina national team&#8217;s victory over Venezuela from a suite at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.\u00a0Photo by Peter Joneleit\/Icon Sportswire<\/p>\n<p>Inter Miami head coach Javier Mascherano, however, welcomed the opportunity to see Messi play with the club when facing Atlanta United at Chase Stadium on Saturday night in a regular-season Major League Soccer match, just one day after Argentina&#8217;s friendly against Venezuela, before insisting he had not spoken to the player about his involvement.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d love it. Imagine being able to have Leo Messi, but the reality is he hasn&#8217;t been with us, and I&#8217;ll repeat this because we&#8217;re talking about Leo,&#8221; said Mascherano. &#8220;But there&#8217;s Rodrigo [De Paul], there&#8217;s Telasco, yes&#8230;Messi can play at any time, obviously. The issue afterward is that I can&#8217;t talk to you about something that&#8217;s counterfactual because he&#8217;s not with us, and the truth is, I haven&#8217;t spoken to Leo. I haven&#8217;t spoken to Leo. Now we&#8217;ll see tonight what happens.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Though Inter Miami already qualified for the 2025 <a data-league-guid=\"d9d3698e-67b3-3ca5-9eb4-f23b8e19a464\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/league\/_\/name\/USA.1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MLS<\/a> playoffs, the team continues to aim for a higher place on the Eastern Conference table to ensure home-field advantage in the post-season.<\/p>\n<p>Argentina added that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/376473\/franco-mastantuono\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Franco Mastantuono<\/a> would miss the remainder of the camp due to a left thigh injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Argentina national team, playing without Lionel Messi, beat Venezuela 1-0 on Friday in a friendly at Hard&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":293947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-293946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115354078033000056","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}