{"id":16286,"date":"2025-07-25T15:25:55","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T19:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2025\/07\/25\/mls-sidelines-lionel-messi-and-jordi-alba-from-all-star-game-showdown\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T15:25:55","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T19:25:55","slug":"mls-sidelines-lionel-messi-and-jordi-alba-from-all-star-game-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2025\/07\/25\/mls-sidelines-lionel-messi-and-jordi-alba-from-all-star-game-showdown\/","title":{"rendered":"MLS Sidelines Lionel Messi and Jordi Alba from All-Star Game Showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lionel Messi and Jordi Alba of Inter Miami will not participate in the Major League Soccer All-Star Game, as announced by the league on Friday. Despite their selection for the event, both players are stepping aside; Messi has opted to rest amid a busy schedule, while Alba continues to manage previous injuries.<\/p>\n<p>According to MLS regulations, players who miss the All-Star Game without prior league approval are ineligible for their club\u2019s next match. Consequently, Messi and Alba will miss Miami&#8217;s home game against FC Cincinnati on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>As Inter Miami awaited the league&#8217;s ruling, both players practiced with the team on Friday, hoping to play in the upcoming match. MLS Commissioner Don Garber expressed his understanding of Messi&#8217;s dedication to the league, commendable contributions to soccer, and respect for his commitment to Miami. However, Garber noted that the league has a longstanding policy regarding All-Star participation, which necessitated enforcing consequences in this situation. He also mentioned that the league would review its policies in collaboration with players to refine future rules.<\/p>\n<p>In essence, this decision signals the ongoing balancing act between player welfare and league mandates. For soccer fans, this highlights the complexities of managing star athletes who are pivotal to the league&#8217;s growth and appeal, and it raises questions about how such policies impact fan engagement and player availability in crucial matches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lionel Messi and Jordi Alba of Inter Miami will not participate in the Major League Soccer All-Star Game, as announced by the league on Friday. Despite their selection for the event, both players are stepping aside; Messi has opted to rest amid a busy schedule, while Alba continues to manage previous injuries. According to MLS [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[4664,4281,40,300,4663,821,822,966,46,1098,1581,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-16286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-alba","9":"tag-allstar","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-game","12":"tag-jordi","13":"tag-lionel","14":"tag-messi","15":"tag-mls","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-showdown","18":"tag-sidelines","19":"tag-soccer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}