Inter Miami advances past scrappy team from Jamaica in Champions Cup, even without Messi
The ongoing confusion and mystery regarding Lionel Messi’s availability was amplified before kickoff on Thursday, and what followed was a tense victory that was tighter than the final scoreline indicated.
An Inter Miami team without Messi topped Jamaican club Cavalier FC 2-0 at Chase Stadium in the first leg of their Concacaf Champions Cup Round of 16 series on a brisk Thursday night in Fort Lauderdale. Tadeo Allendeo scored the game-winner just past the hour mark after a scrappy play in the penalty area, and Luis Suarez later added an insurance tally to give the South Florida side the advantage ahead of next week’s decisive match in Kingston.
Despite the shutout victory, much of the talk in the pregame and postgame was about Messi’s absence. Deporte Total USA reported on Thursday afternoon that Messi would miss his second straight match across all competitions, raising concerns and questions about both the severity and accuracy of the muscle overload that Inter Miami has said the Argentine superstar is suffering from.
“I go by what the medical team tells me,” Inter Miami head coach Javier Mascherano said. “The medical team has told me he has no injury. He has (muscle) fatigue from having played three games in six days, the change of climates, and a lot of situations.
“We want to take care of him and do not want him to aggravate that overload so we gave him rest while knowing the risks we were taking because not having the best player in the world is complicated. We also have to take a step forward as a team and know how to play without him.”
Inter Miami has largely played coy with injuries dating to its inaugural season in 2020. The organization often provides “day-to-day” updates when asked about injured players, a permitted approach given Major League Soccer’s lack of a uniform rule for reporting injuries.
Situations involving Messi’s health have been no different, with this latest episode serving as the freshest example.
The Inter Miami captain showed some discomfort in the second half of last week’s Concacaf Champions Cup tilt vs. Sporting Kansas City, leading to him being substituted in the 69th minute before heading straight to the locker room and never returning.
Messi trained during the opening 15 minutes of last Friday’s practice available to the press, but then did not travel for the Sunday match vs. the Houston Dynamo. Messi was back on the training field for the first 15 minutes of Wednesday morning’s session that were open to the media, but Mascherano refrained from confirming the star’s participation for Thursday.
“He does some things, but like the manager said he has an overload,” said midfielder Sergio Busquets when asked if Messi is training fully with his teammates. “We do not have to force it. It is better when he is 100 percent so that he does not miss any more games and does not suffer any injury.”
Without Messi in Mascherano’s preferred 4-4-2 formation, Inter Miami had a tough time beating Cavalier FC. The hosts struggled to generate scoring opportunities against the motivated and energetic Jamaicans during the opening stanza, and looked to have fallen behind just before halftime.
A free kick from the right six minutes into first-half stoppage time was floated to the left, where winger Jalmaro Calvin one-timed a low cross to the far post for a tap-in finish from striker Shaquille Urekiel Dykimbe Stein.
Euphoric scenes ensued for Cavalier FC while an animated Mascherano vehemently protested. A long delay followed as the play was looked at by Video Assistant Referee (VAR), forcing head referee Mario Escobar to go to the monitor for Video Review.
Escobar ultimately decided to negate the goal for a tight offside call on right back Jerome Zidon McLeary, who participated in the play with a headed attempt on the cross.
“I just thought that if there were a million referees in the world, only one would have made that call,” Cavalier FC head coach Rudolph Speid said. “I just thought every other referee would have awarded a goal. We looked at it and there was a player in a position that could be offside, but he was not in the play at all so I thought the goal should have stood.”
The Caribbean team had two previous dangerous chances that were not capitalized on by Calvin. First, he failed to direct an awkward though acrobatic left-footed effort at the back post on frame in the 28th minute following a whipped-in ball from fellow attacker Jamilhio Ritgers on the left.
Calvin popped up down the right again five minutes later, hitting a shot that deflected off of sliding Inter Miami centerback David Martinez before clipping off the left post.
Mascherano’s men improved after halftime, and ended the stalemate through Allende in the 61st minute. A corner kick from the right led to a scramble in the box that saw a determined Suarez keep the ball alive before Sergio Busquets hit a back pass that Allende rifled home with a hard, driven finish.
Suarez doubled the lead 22 minutes later, taking advantage of a defensive mistake to get on the end of substitute winger Leo Afonso’s low ball and finishing clinically to the bottom left corner.
“He has been important statistically and he always scores a lot,” Busquets said of Suarez. “He is a No. 9 that links up to play, moves the ball from one side to the other, and when he scores his play is that much better. That is the case with any striker, but he does work in the attack as well as defensively.”
Inter Miami will play the second leg of this Champions Cup series against Cavalier FC on March 13 at National Stadium Independence Park in Kingston, Jamaica, but the MLS side first hosts Charlotte FC in league play on Sunday.
This story was originally published March 6, 2025 at 10:58 PM.