In a finale worthy of Hollywood, the consummation of the romance between the city of Miami and the new star of its soccer team, Lionel Messi, came after six weeks of flirting and promises of eternal love with a great free-kick in the last breath of Friday night between Inter Miami and Mexicans Cruz Azul. That genius alone, highlighted by a salvo of pink fireworks, was enough to give victory to his team (2-1) and for the Argentine star to make it clear what they have brought him to do in this hitherto forgotten corner of world football.
It was the 94th minute of a thick game, the score was 1-1, and some of the 22,000 fans who did not want to miss the premiere of the new era of their team decided that it was a good idea to run out of the stadium to avoid traffic jam, perhaps without knowing that the rules of the Leagues Cup, North American club competition, oblige to go to penalties in case of a tie. It was not necessary. Messi fell to the ground victim of a foul by the Mexicans. He picked up the ball, caressed it with one of his half smiles, and suddenly it was clear what was going to happen. He sent him straight to the squad.
“Simply, I saw the goal,” said the forward at the end of the match. “I saw it, and I knew I had to mark it.”
Ecstasy seized the stands of the DNV PNK stadium in Fort Lauderdale, 40 kilometers north of Miami where the team plays while a new field is being built, a spontaneous tried to jump onto the field and everyone at home, managers, fans, players and a large part of the 200 world journalists accredited for the match, as well as Messi himself, breathed a sigh of relief. The sports director, David Beckham, even shed tears.
The new 10 from Inter, who until then had been chanted even for his style to sit on the bench, came onto the field eight minutes into the second half. He did it accompanied by the other great signing of the season: Sergio Busquets. During the week the club had already made it clear that they were not going to start, that their bodies of legendary players in the decline, and at the end both of a demanding season in Europe, were not there for dangerous boasting.
In the end, the coach Gerardo daddy Martino, another newcomer to Miami, put them on the line sooner than it seemed. A first combination between the two was enough for a lash of electricity to run through the stadium, and for what had been seen on the pitch in the previous 53 minutes to seem like something else; similar to soccer, yes, but something else.
mexican superiority
The match began with a clear dominance of Cruz Azul, who wasted one opportunity after another, while the local fans devoted themselves to the sport of spotting celebrities (Lebron James, Serena Williams, Kim Kardashian or the singer Becky G, who sang the American anthem to the nines) seemed to have mutated into a species that spoke a language with only one word: “Messi! Messi!” Few will surely remember him when this match is discussed in the future, but the hero of the first half for Miami was only one: goalkeeper Drake Callender. He averted tragedy time after time.
Inter’s Finnish player Robert Taylor converted in the 43rd minute the only chance the locals had in the first half. He did it from the left, with a right hand that touched the post and almost didn’t go in. It was the team’s first shot on goal.
With Messi, Busquets and Josef Martínez, Inter’s third “designated player” – a category reserved by the rules of the US MLS (Major League Soccer) league for the three to whom the salary ceiling imposed by the competition is not applied to the rest of the athletes – local prospects improved. From time to time, the Argentine penetrated with amazing ease between the lines of Cruz Azul, in plays a couple of times thwarted by offside. Busquets had a harder time finding his voice in the game.
And in these, the Mexicans achieved what they had been deserving for a while. It was in the 64th minute, with a goal from striker Uriel Antuna, that he received a pass inside the area that crashed hard, first into Callender’s hands and then into the net.
When everything portended the worst, Inter’s second arrived. With him, the feeling spread that the idyll between Miami and Messi has started on the right foot, who has signed a contract for two and a half seasons, at a rate of between 50 and 60 million dollars per year plus a future participation in the club when he retires and a portion of the television broadcasting rights, owned by Apple TV. It will also charge for the sale of sports equipment, and that does seem like a round business these days in South Florida: t-shirts, both official and pirated, have become ubiquitous, making Miami the only place in the United States where this Friday pink was not synonymous with the fever for the premiere of Barbie.
The newly launched idyll between city and player will have its second date on Tuesday, when Inter will face Atlanta United at home in another Leagues Cup match, a team that Martino helped win a league title in 2018. In that competition, stopped in the United States until the end of August, Inter is bottom of the Eastern Conference. Mathematically, it is still possible for them to achieve the playoffs. It won’t be easy, but, as his debut showed, that’s precisely why Messi has been brought to this hitherto forgotten corner of world football: to make the difficult seem easy.
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