Latest Messi injury poses hard questions for Mascherano, Miami | OneFootball

Mascherano must learn to better manage Messi's minutes

By now, the soccer world knows that Lionel Messi will miss Argentina's matches against Uruguay and Brazil this international break with what Inter Miami is calling a "low-grade injury in the adductor muscle. What is unknown is when he will be available to play any matches.

The 37-year-old icon suffered the injury in Sunday's 2-1 MLS regular-season win against Atlanta United. The Herons' captain played the full match with some discomfort; an MRI at Baptist Health Care in Miami on Monday confirmed the injury. Adductor muscles in the hips and shoulders allow humans to pull their limbs back toward the body. Athletes are particularly susceptible to hip adductor injuries, which are caused by sudden movements like kicking, twisting while running, or jumping -- all of which Messi did on his goal.

Messi apparently injured his groin on this play, his beautiful first-half goal to even the score at 1-1:

According to HealthLine.com, an adductor strain -- commonly called a groin injury -- can take from less than two weeks to more than four months, depending on the severity of the strain and the fitness of the patient. Inter Miami goalkeeper Drake Callender, for example, suffered an adductor injury while training with the U.S. Men's National Team in January and, although team doctors have cleared him to play, still is experiencing discomfort and hasn't played this year (he was available Sunday to backup Rocco Rios Novo.

Inter Miami coach Javier Mascherano, Messi's friend and former teammate at Barcelona, has tried to limit the legendary player's minutes, holding him out of three straight matches before playing him almost 40 minutes at the end of the Herons' Concacaf Champions Cup match in Jamaica on Thursday. Many observers expected Mascherano to rest Messi again Sunday, the last match before the FIFA International break, but evidently a rivalry match on Sunday Night Soccer was too juicy for one of the most competitive athletes ever.

Javier Mascherano must manage his veteran superstars' playing time to maximize Inter Miami's success. | Kevin C. Cox/GettyImages

Which raises the question: Who decides whether Messi plays? I don't envy any coach the responsibility of telling his sport's greatest-ever player he's not playing, but at some point Mascherano must protect Messi -- and his other former Barcelona teammates, Jordi Alba, Sergio Busquets, and Luis Suarez -- from themselves. My FanSided colleague Ian Nicholas Quillen at MLS Multiplex wrote an excellent commentary on Messi's playing time here.

Fans are greedy; we want our heroes to play every match, we expect to see them when we pay for tickets or subscribe to streaming services to watch them perform. But these players aren't machines; if we want to continue to enjoy their talents, even long after their primes, we must accept that time is creeping steadily up on them, as it is for us all.