Messi misses Paris Saint-Germain in the French League

Argentine star Lionel Messi will miss his team Paris Saint-Germain's match against Montpellier on Saturday in the French Football League, due to a knee injury, his club announced on Friday.

The best player in the world returned six times, "to run today, according to the protocol established for his recovery. His condition will be evaluated again on Sunday," two days before the important match in the second round of the group stage of the Champions League against its guest, Manchester City.

His coach and compatriot Mauricio Pochettino had explained the reasons that led him to replace Messi in the last quarter of an hour of his team's match against Lyon (2-1) in the league on Sunday, which is his suffering from a bruise in his left knee.

Messi left the field and was replaced by Moroccan right-back Achraf Hakimi. The Argentine star was astonished when he left the green rectangle, so he refused to shake hands with the hand extended by his coach.

Messi missed the match against Metz (2-1) in the local league, where Saint-Germain leads by a wide margin from its nearest competitor.

Pochettino considered that replacing Messi was in the player's best interest, saying, "We are watching from the bench all the players on the pitch to see what happens during the match, and we have seen that Leo is constantly looking at his knee and inspecting it."

Messi, 34, moved at the beginning of the season to Saint-Germain on a free deal, after spending nearly two decades with Barcelona.

He is still searching for his first goal with the Qatari-owned team.

Italian midfielder Marco Verratti and Spanish defender Sergio Ramos are also absent from the Montpellier match.

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