Inter Miami rested Lionel Messi and suffered their first defeat since the Argentine joined the club, with a 5-2 hammering at Atlanta United damaging their playoff hopes on Saturday.

Messi had not made the trip to Atlanta, after a busy run of games since making his Miami debut in late July.

Miami coach Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino said after the loss that Messi had been suffering from “muscle fatigue” and that it would have been “very reckless to bring him to play this game”.

The 36-year-old sat out Argentina’s World Cup qualifier against Bolivia in La Paz on Tuesday but watched his team-mates from the bench.

Read full story on sport.timesofmalta.com

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.