Paris Saint-Germain’s Lionel Messi is an injury doubt to face Bayern Munich in the first leg of their Champions League round of 16 tie on Tuesday after suffering a hamstring strain, sources have told ESPN.
Messi completed the full 90 minutes in PSG’s 2-1 Coupe de France defeat to Marseille on Wednesday, but he subsequently felt pain in his hamstring and a scan revealed a strain, sources said.
While the injury is not serious and PSG are hopeful he could feature against the German champions at the Parc des Princes, he is unlikely to be at 100%. He is definitely ruled out for Saturday’s Ligue 1 match away at Monaco, sources added.
Messi has scored 15 goals this season for PSG, including three in six games since returning from leading Argentina to the World Cup title in Qatar.
PSG are already expected to be without top scorer Kylian Mbappe in the first leg against Bayern. The France forward suffered a knee and thigh injury against Montpellier last week with the club subsequently ruling him out for three weeks.
The Ligue 1 leaders are still trying to win their first Champions League title and will visit Bayern Munich for their tie’s second leg on March 8.
Inside Spain: Lionel Messi’s brother sets media on fire
On top of being one of, if not the best player in the club’s history, Lionel Messi is one of Barcelona’s favourite sons. The Argentine was adored by many club officials, and especially so by the supporters of the Blaugrana.
As well as being a Barca man, Messi is also a family man. He has his wife Antonella Roccuzzo, and sons Thiago, Mateo and Ciro, as well as father Jorge and mother Celia. Messi also has three siblings: Maria, Rodrigo and Matias, and it is the latter that is making waves in the media.
Messi’s nephew, Tomi, was streaming on Twitch with Matias among others, and the group started talking about Barcelona. Matias proceeded to go on a tirade about the club, in which he particularly had a go at president Joan Laporta.
“I have a SPORT clipping stuck in my house that says: ‘Messi should return to Barcelona’; and I subtitled it ‘hahahaha, we are not going back to Barcelona, and if we do, we are going to do a good cleaning. Among them, kick out Joan Laporta’
“People (in Barcelona) did not support him. People should have gone out to do a march or something, let Laporta leave and Messi stay. The Spanish are traitors. I tell you because I want it to come out of our guts and not listen to things that are not true.”
Messi played for Barcelona for 21 years, and Matias believes that the Blaugrana wouldn’t be as popular as they are now without his brother’s influence.
“(I think) Barcelona became known thanks to Messi. Nobody knew about them before. Whoever’s had the chance to go to Barcelona and see the museum, you can see that the museum is Messi.”
We are left to wonder what Matias’ superstar brother has to say about his siblings’ comments, but Barcelona and Laporta are likely to be furious with his words.
SOURCE: espn.co.uk, football-espana.net
