Inter Miami, New York Red Bulls both have depleted rosters Saturday. Here’s who’s missing

Lionel Messi’s absence is but one of the challenges facing Inter Miami coach Tata Martino heading into the Saturday afternoon road game against the New York Red Bulls.

Miami will be missing eight players, maybe nine, due to injury and the FIFA international break. Most of the leagues around the world halt during the mandated FIFA dates, but Major League Soccer plays through, forcing many of the league’s top players to miss games.

FIFA matches take priority over league games and players called into international duty must get clearance from their federation or pay a fine to play in club games during those windows. Inter Miami winger Robert Taylor was called into Finland’s camp this week, but declined, and the Finnish federation gave him permission to stay with Miami.

Thirteen MLS games will be held this weekend. Inter Miami and the Red Bulls will each be missing six players due to national team duty. Martino said the Red Bulls had requested to postpone the game, Inter Miami agreed, but the league declined the request. He added that MLS should reconsider playing through FIFA dates.

Miami will be without Drake Callender (USA), Fede Redondo (Argentina U23), Diego Gomez (Paraguay), David Ruiz (Honduras), Shanyder Borgelin (Haiti), and Israel Boatright (Dominican Republic U23).

Messi is recovering from a strained hamstring and is not yet ready to play this weekend, Martino said. The Argentine star missed last Saturday’s 3-1 win at D.C. United. He has been doing light training the past four days and will be re-evaluated next week, Martino said. The coach has said he hopes to have Messi back for the Champions Cup quarterfinal Apr. 3 and Apr. 10 against Mexican club Monterrey.

Center back Nico Frieire is also out indefinitely with a hamstring injury. Forward Leo Campana, who scored against D.C. last weekend, is questionable with a strained adductor.

Four players from Inter Miami’s second team were called up and will travel as reinforcements: Tyler Hall, Ricardo Montenegro, Leo Afonso, and Jose Casas.

The Red Bulls are missing Carlos Coronel (Paraguay), John Tolkin (USA), Noah Eile (Sweden), Daniel Edelman (USA), Emil Forsberg (Sweden), and Cory Burke (Jamaica). All but Burke are starters.

Despite the key absences, Martino feels his team, which sits atop the Eastern Conference standings through five games, will be able to field a competitive squad for the game. Miami leads the league with 13 goals and a plus-eight goal differential.

Among the players available are Luis Suarez, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, Robert Taylor, Julian Gressel, Tomas Aviles, Sergiy Kryvtsov, Noah Allen, Lawson Sunderland, and C.J. Dos Santos, who will start in goal in place of Callender.

Suarez scored a pair of goals off the bench against D.C. and has four so far this season, tied for first place in the MLS scoring list with LA Galaxy’s Dejan Joveljic and Atlanta United’s Giorgos Giakoumakis. Including Champions Cup games, Suarez has six goals. Messi has four.

Dos Santos is eager to prove what he can do.

“I’ve been looking forward to any opportunity for a long time and I’m passionate about what I do,” he said. “I go into every day, every week trying to get better, whether it’s one percent better or 10 percent better. I go based on carpe diem, seize every opportunity, going to try to do my best going into Saturday.”

The young goalkeeper said he is inspired by Callender, who began his Inter Miami career as a third-string keeper and is now a starter and on the U.S. national team roster for the Nations Cup this week.

“I tell him all the time, he’s a great motivation for me,” Dos Santos said. “Just seeing where he started out and where he is now, he’s on an amazing path and I hope I can take some of that and learn and make it my own.”

Inter Miami is expecting an intense game against the Red Bulls, a team known for its high press and organization.

Three former Inter Miami players could be in the Red Bulls lineup Saturday: Dylan Nealis, Andres Reyes, and Lewis Morgan, the Scottish winger who scored the game-winning goal for New York in the past two games.

New York is in sixth place in the East after an opening day tie against Nashville, back-to-back wins over Houston and Dallas and a 3-0 loss on the road to defending champion Columbus Crew.

How to Watch: Inter Miami vs. New York Red Bulls is at 2 p.m. Saturday on Apple TV MLS Season Pass.