Lionel Messi’s seven objectives for 2024 with Inter Miami and Argentina

Leo Messi enjoyed a season in 2023 that showed two two extremes of football: the Argentine enjoyed the longest holiday of his career before the months of August, September and October, when the number of matches for the 36-year-old became too much.

Messi, fatigued to the limit by travelling to play every 2 days, ended up suffering an overload in the back of his leg that resulted in his impact plummeting at a key moment for Inter Miami. However, this season looks very different.

This season, one of Messi’s great ambitions is to structure his calendar in the best possible way to be able to play and compete in the seven competitions in which he will be able to participate with both his club and the national team.

Messi’s 7 objectives for 2024:

MLS to give sides more rest time

Relatively recently, MLS announced that none of its franchises will be in the US Open Cup for the first time in 26 years. The main intention with this move - which is quite unprecedented in modern football - is to free up space and time to rest in the U.S. soccer calendar.

The emergence of Leagues Cup, won by Messi this past year, has caused a change of priorities in MLS clubs, who have decided that it will be the affiliates (MLS Next Pro) and second division teams who will compete in the oldest tournament in the United States.

This move gives all sides time to rest and for Messi, this means he will hopefully avoid the injury that struck him at the end of the 2023 season, which saw him forced to sit on the sidelines as his team struggled without their talisman, falling at the final hurdle of the US Open Cup and not making the playoffs in MLS. 2024 should be different, and nobody wants it more than Messi himself.