Paris Saint-Germain talents Lionel Messi and Leandro Paredes each have been dealing with their fair share of injuries as of late.
Messi was ruled out from PSG’s UEFA Champions League away group stage fixture against RB Leipzig and the recent Ligue 1 fixture against Bordeaux due to both his hamstring and knee injuries. On the other hand, Paredes has been sidelined due to his notable thigh injury.
Still, this did not prevent the Argentina national team from calling them up for its upcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifying fixtures against Uruguay and Brazil.
PSG sporting director Leonardo is not much pleased with the fact that the two will join up with Argentina, although they have been out of action as of late due to their injuries, which he opened up about to Le Parisien (via Le10Sport).
“We do not agree with letting a player leave for international duty who, for us, is not in physical condition or is at the recovery stage,” Leonardo said. “It’s not logical, and these kinds of situations merit that we establish a rule with FIFA.”
This surely is not the first time that PSG has faced an issue with national teams calling up its injured players. Last November, Neymar dealt with an adductor injury and still, the Brazilian national team elected to call him up for that month’s international fixtures. In the end, Neymar did not feature in a single fixture with Brazil in the month, as he returned early to PSG.
It will be noteworthy to see whether both Messi and Paredes will feature for Argentina against both Brazil and Uruguay in the final international break of the calendar year.
