Fort Lauderdale, Florida Lionel Messi was still out with a hamstring injury on Wednesday night. His Inter Miami team took a 1-0 lead against Monterrey of Mexico in the first leg of the CONCACAF Champions Cup semifinals, but lost 2-1 in the second leg.
Messi missed his fourth straight game with an injury to his right hamstring. He hasn’t played since March 13 and also didn’t play in Argentina’s practice games against El Salvador and Costa Rica last month.
Messi, who is 36 years old, hasn’t said when he will come back yet. The second game of the quarterfinal between Inter Miami and Monterrey is set to take place in Mexico on April 10. On Saturday, Inter Miami will also play an MLS game against Colorado.
“He feels better every day. “Today it would have been too dangerous,” Inter Miami coach Gerardo “Tata” Martino said after the game through a translator. Besides that, he said Messi would keep being game-to-game.
In the 89th minute on Wednesday, Jorge Rodríguez of Monterrey broke a 1-1 tie by shooting into the top right corner past Miami’s goalie Drake Callender after Diego Gómez made a bad pass. This ended Inter Miami’s strong first half in its toughest match of the season.
In the 19th minute, Julian Gressel sent in a corner kick that Tomas Avilés scored against the other team. Avilés, who is 19 years old, scored his first goal of the season during a strong first-half defense that kept Monterrey at bay.
But Inter Miami lost when David Ruíz got a second yellow card and was sent off in the 65th minute for making contact that wasn’t necessary. Miami played the last 25 minutes of the game without a player.
Read More: Campana’s Brilliance: Inter Miami Soars Past Sporting KC without Messi.
Quickly, Monterrey tied the game with a goal less than five minutes later from Maximiliano Meza, who shot past Callender on his second try after Sergio Canales took a corner kick.
Martino said, “The first thing is that we didn’t have enough legs to do the last 20 minutes.” “And you have to be in great shape to play against a team like Monterrey.” It looked like we would be dominated at times during the game. It didn’t happen as often as I thought it would, but having to play the last 20 minutes with only one person on the field was a problem.
Seven stops were made by Callender, and one was made by Esteban Andrada for Monterrey.
Robert Taylor of Miami left the game hurt after he fell and grabbed his leg in pain in the 36th minute.
