MIAMI — Lionel Messi is healthy and expected to start for Inter Miami at home against Nashville SC Wednesday night in the deciding leg of the Concacaf Champions Cup Round of 16. His three ex-Barcelona teammates Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba and Luis Suarez are also fit, well-rested and ready to play.

Miami tied Nashville 2-2 on the road in the first leg last Thursday, and though the teams are tied on aggregate, Miami holds the edge because the first tiebreaker is away goals. Messi and his teammates will advance to the quarterfinals of the $5 million tournament with a win, a 0-0 tie, or a 1-1 tie.

If Wednesday’s game is 2-2 at the end of regulation, it will go to extra time and then penalty kicks. The last time these two teams went to PKs, in the Leagues Cup final last August, it went 10 rounds before Miami clinched it.

While Messi and his high-profile supporting cast might intimidate some MLS teams, they don’t seem to faze Nashville, which has tied Miami the last three times they played.

“We’ve played them enough now that there’s no fear,” said Nashville defender Lukas Macnaughton, whose tackle on Messi in last Thursday’s Champions Cup game was still the subject of much debate on social media five days later.

“Leo is an experienced player; he was trying to get something out of nothing,” said Macnaughton. “But I’ve tackled enough players in my career that it is what it is. If someone wants to make a fuss of it after the game or in the game, it’s just another tackle.”

All that said, Macnaughton and Nashville coach Gary Smith heaped praise on Messi and explained why playing against him is so difficult.

“It’s a never-ending conundrum,” Smith said of playing the Argentine eight-time Ballon d’Or winner. “You try to set up a group to try and limit what he’s able to do. He’s proved throughout his career at the very best levels that no matter how good you are defensively or how well organized you are, the caliber of the individual will always find a way.

“So, we try to limit service to him and then, that intensity, whenever possible, in and around him. But most important, to be ourselves and not play a game that is abnormal to us.”

Macnaughton was asked how opponents adjust when defending Messi.

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