Why Rest Messi but Play Luis Suarez? Danny Higginbotham's Shrewd Explanation | OneFootball

One of the more confusing things about Lionel Messi's three-game absence for Inter Miami has been manager Javier Mascherano's desire to rest Messi for injury prevention reasons, while using other aging Herons veterans like Luis Suarez much more liberally.

At 38, Suarez is slightly older than Messi, and famously goes through an elaborate regimen just to get on the field and overcome chronic knee issues. Yet he has played 85% of Miami's competitive minutes so far, including 60 on Sunday afternoon in which he contributed the key assist in the 10-man Herons' 1-0 victory over Charlotte FC on Sunday afternoon.

The disparity may be in part because Messi's chronic issues are soft-tissue related while Suarez's are in his joints. And while Mascherano has repeatedly assured the public that Messi is not "injured" per se, there are reports that he was dealing with muscle cramps and/or spasms after his first three appearances of the competitive season.

But during Sunday's win -- in which Messi returned to Miami's roster but remained on the bench for all 90 minutes -- Apple TV analyst and former Premier League defender Danny Higginbotham said the difference is also about the fundamental characteristics of the two players. And he had particular insight into Suarez, whom he played against during the Uruguayan's time with Liverpool.

"It's two completely different players," Higginbotham said. "I go back to my football career ... and I played with players, going to 36, 37 they could rest for a few weeks and come back fresh. I was a player, though, who had to play week in, week out. Because if I missed one game. It took me three games to get back going again.

"And I look at Suarez like that. I think Suarez is the type of player, you just keep playing him. Because if you rest him, if you stop him, it's going to take him a long time to get back into the rhythm of things."

The numbers back it up

Higginbotham is one of the game's most insightful analysts, and does excellent work for NBC Sports' Premier League coverage in addition to his MLS Season Pass work. And it's no surprise that the numbers back up his theory, at least recently.

Despite scoring 20 times for the Herons last season, Luis Suarez's scoring form clearly dipped following extended layoffs from MLS play.

He was three matches into the 2024 MLS season before earning scoring his first goals in the league. He also fired blanks in his first two matches after returning from summer Copa America duty. And he was mostly a non-factor in Miami's first two competitive fixtures this season, beforce contributing a goal or assis in each of the Herons' four games since.

By contrast, Messi scored in his very first game for Miami in the 2023 Leagues Cup, despite only arriving in South Florida a few days prior. He scored in his first game back from a two-month injury layoff last September. And despite Arctic temperatures, he scored in his first game of 2025, a 1-0 opening leg in at Sporting Kansas City in the Concacaf Champions Cup first round.

It's still not clear if or how much Mascherano will use Messi during Miami's next match, the return leg of their Concacaf round-of-16 clash against Jamaica's Cavalier FC in Kingston on Thursday night. But Higginbotham's insight makes it clear that we shouldn't expect Messi to struggle with rust in the same way Suarez might.