Bad news for Argentina, 'Messi's replacement' is injured and could be serious

The October international break will start this week. The most important players in the world will return to their respective countries to join their national teams and face qualifying or friendly matches. In South America, two qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup will be played and Argentina will face Paraguay in Buenos Aires on Thursday and Peru in Lima next Tuesday.

One of the first players to arrive in Argentina was Lionel Messi, who landed at Ezeiza airport (22 miles from Buenos Aires) on Monday morning. In the afternoon he will attend the first training session with his teammates, where coach Lionel Scaloni will begin to decide the starting lineup for Thursday's match.

Leo is not 100% fit, as he suffered a muscular problem at the beginning of September in the match between Argentina and Ecuador. He then played just 35 minutes for Inter Miami against Toronto FC, when he suffered the pain. He was only able to return to the field 17 days later, last Saturday against Cincinnati. That is why the forward may not be fit to play the matches against Paraguay and Peru in their entirety, and together with the coach they will decide what is the most convenient thing to do.

With this scenario, one of the players most likely to replace Messi was Paulo Dybala. The AS Roma forward plays in the same position as Leo and is having great performances in his club. However, this will not happen. On Sunday he had knee problems during the match against Cagliari and had to be replaced. That is why he was left out of the Argentina squad.

What happened to him?

At the press conference after the match against Cagliari, AS Roma coach Jose Mourinho spoke about Dybala and said: "We have to wait for the results of the tests, but I have a lot of confidence in the players and in the knowledge of their body. Paulo is not optimistic and neither am I." Medical tests will be carried out in the coming hours, but it is known that at the very least he has a sprained knee.