Latest on Messi, who appeared to roll ankle on eve of Leagues Cup semi at Philadelphia

Lionel Messi appeared to (gasp!) roll his left ankle during ball drills early in Monday’s morning training session, but Inter Miami coach Tata Martino downplayed the injury, and the club posted a photo of the Argentine star boarding the team flight to Philadelphia later in the day, en route to Tuesday’s Leagues Cup semifinal.

Messi stretched to stop a ball with his right foot planted, stumbled and seemed to tweak his left ankle. He grimaced and walked gingerly for a few steps but continued with the practice during the 15 minutes open to the media.

Asked later whether Messi completed the training session, Martino said: “I attended only part of the training session because I had a meeting afterwards and was finishing preparing, so I didn’t see exactly what happened. But I imagine if it was something serious, everyone would have been shocked and made a big deal. Since everyone was fine, I think nothing happened.”

Messi has scored eight goals in five Cup games since joining Inter Miami and is drawing big crowds for every game. Tickets for Tuesday’s match at Subaru Park (7 p.m., Apple TV MLS Season Pass) sold out in eight minutes. Union coach Jim Curtin urged home fans not to sell their tickets, no matter how much they were offered for them.

“I never in my life would have thought that maybe outside of Taylor Swift, the hottest ticket of the summer would be in Chester [Pennsylvania], with the Philadelphia Union playing Lionel Messi,” Curtin said, smiling.

Curtin said he got more than 250 ticket requests, “some from people I haven’t talked to in 20 years,” and expects some big names in the audience.

“I don’t want to speak on anyone’s name, but there’s a lot of celebrities that will be in attendance,” Curtin said. “You’ve seen the LeBrons the Kardashians showing love to Messi and there’ll be the who’s who of Philly out in Chester and that’s a surreal thing and something that’s really cool. It only grows the game in this city, and it creates buzz around the game. But once the whistle blows you have two teams that are playing real well right now that are confident, coming off five game winning streaks. It will be a tough game, for sure.”

The Union finished runners-up in MLS last season and have lost just one of the past 28 home matches, to Orlando in March. This will be the toughest test yet for Messi and his teammates, who have scored 17 times in five games. Philadelphia has allowed four goals total in the five Cup games.

Curtin said not enough has been said about Sergio Busquets and the impact he has had on Inter Miami since joining the team in July.

“Everyone is talking about Messi, and that’s natural, he’s been incredible, for an athlete to deliver over and over and every big pressure moment again and again for his team has been amazing to watch,” Curtin said. “But if you take away Busquets and cut away the service, if you look at every goal they’ve scored (in Leagues Cup), he either plays the pass that leads directly to the goal or the pass, which is maybe more important, the pass that leads to the pass that leads to the goal. He’s a really, really tough guy to get around because he’s so intelligent.”

The key for the Union, Curtin said, is cutting off Messi’s service from Busquets.

“I’ve talked all week about if Messi receives the ball, it’s too late,” Curtin said. “We’re in trouble. We’ve messed up if he receives the ball at his feet. So how can we, in a smart way, try to cut out the weapons that get him the ball on the ground? It starts with Busquets. Easier said than done.”

Since Messi joined the team, Inter Miami is ranked No. 1 in the league in possession.

“We’ll have to be a team that is really stable and organized, we have to know where Messi is at all times,” Curtin said. “We’ll have our hands full. Having said that, we know we can manufacture goals on things like restarts, really good counter attacking, and we have a good group, too.”

Curtin also had high praise for Martino. “They are very, very well coached. I have respect for the job that he did in Atlanta, the job he did for the Mexican national team, the job that he’s doing now in Miami in a short time, and maybe the scariest thing is they’re only going to get better and better and better.”

Facundo Farias, the young Argentine midfielder who joined Inter Miami over the weekend, traveled to Philadelphia to replace Edison Azcona, who injured his ankle in practice Sunday. New signee Tomas Aviles and Coco Jean and Jean Mota, coming off injuries, stayed behind to train.

Union goalkeeper Andre Blake, who plays for the Jamaican national team, faced Messi last year when Jamaica played Argentina and said he learned from the experience.

Asked what they can do to stop Messi, Blake said “It’s hard. You’re talking about the best player in the world. It’s going to be a team effort. You can’t really stop him, but hopefully we’ll be able to kind of slow him down and throw him off his game a little bit. Hopefully he will have a quiet night…Hopefully we can play well and turn some Messi fans into Union fans.”