‘Dreaming with eyes wide open’: Tears, joy for Messi’s Miami debut from Section 118, Row 20 | Opinion
It wasn’t just the winning goal that came at the very end as if scripted by divine intervention. It happened before. It was that moment early in the second half Friday night when the man was introduced and trotted onto the field. Ear-numbing cheers laid an aural red carpet for his entrance. Countless thousands of his jerseys were being worn in the stands. Now one was actually on the pitch for Inter Miami.
Messi. 10.
“Dreaming with eyes wide open,” the team’s central defender Kamal Miller would later describe the feeling. “We all are.”
Inter Miami is. Major League Soccer is. South Florida is. The sport in America, is, too, its stature in the world instantly lifted and its future fortified.
All are dreaming with eyes wide open at the impossible sight of Lionel Messi in the pink kit of Inter Miami.
The stars were out to be a part of it. LeBron James was hugging Messi before the game. Serena Williams was there, and Kim Kardashian. Somebody said Tom Brady was, too.
But the dreaming starts most viscerally with the fans, as it always does in sports. I was among them Friday night at DRV PNK Stadium in Fort Lauderdale as Messi made his debut here as the biggest star ever to grace MLS. Eschewing a spot in the press box, I sat in Section 118, Row 20, embedded among the idolaters.
The chanting of Messi’s name thundered all around, quaking the stands. As the decibels rose to drown out his introduction into the game, I saw a fan one row down and a few seats over, an older gentleman, sobbing with joy, a streak of tears glistening under the stadium lights.
“This is not happening,” I heard somebody behind me shout over the din. “I am seeing it, but it can’t be real!”
I own three season tickets. Before Messi, it was not always easy to even give them away. Now, it is closer to holding three winning lottery tickets. The Messi Effect, according to secondary ticket company TicketIQ, is that the value of Inter Miami tickets has risen by 459 percent and the cost of tickets to see him in MLS road games has spiked by 568 percent.
“It’s a good time to be in the soccer business,” as MLS commissioner Don Garber puts it.
We would not have taken any amount of money for our tickets and missed seeing history Friday night.
I sat with my son Chris and a friend who is the biggest Messi fan I know. Guillermo is a Honduran from Miami. Owns a small company that cleans office buildings and houses. I asked to describe what it is about Messi for him.
“His art to play football like nobody else,” Guillermo told me. “I have never seen it, except maybe for Maradona. Messi was the best and is the best I have ever seen.”
He had seen Messi twice before in person, both times for Barcelona exhibition matches at Hard Rock Stadium. This was different.
“It was very emotional. Amazing, just to see him. To see how when he comes to the game, he changes the game. You saw. Everybody was calling me during the game, friends from Honduras. ‘Hey, I am by you. I would like to be there...’”
He changes the game. And he did., palpably, when he entered in the 54th minute. The pace quickened with urgency. Messi’s ball-on-foot skills remain magical at age 36. In the chess game that is futbol, his runs and passes think two moves ahead.
Inter Miami’s youngest player, midfielder Benjamin Cremaschi, 18, from Key Biscayne, is now a trivia answer: Who was the player Messi replaced to make his MLS debut?
“I was like another fan cheering for him. It was really exciting,” Cremaschi said later. “When he came in, a couple of us said, ‘He’s going to score! He’s going to win the game for us.’ It’s just crazy that I could be part of that moment.’’
It was the 94th minute in a game tied 1-1 vs. Mexico’s Cruz Azul in a Leagues Cup match. Extra time. Inter Miami was awarded a free kick and there was zero chance Messi would not take it. He lined up to strike with his left foot as he has countless times before. He crouched slightly, then uncoiled toward the ball.
“What I saw was the goal,” Messi told Apple TV+ later, in Spanish. “I saw the goal. I knew that I had to score. It was the last play of the game and I wanted to score so we didn’t go to penalties.”
The ball lifted, curled fast over the defenders’ wall and rattled the upper-left of the net.
Miami midfielder Robert Taylor, who had scored his team’s first goal: “Unbelievable. Everybody saw the free kick, and I’m still a little bit overwhelmed by it.”
Inter Miami’s new coach, Tata Martino: “It was like a movie that will play on repeat forever. It’s almost like it was written. He is always there to write these stories.”
That the continuing real-life fantasy tale that is Lionel Messi continues in South Florida is the gift that has us dreaming with eyes wide open.
The latest chapter opened with a storybook ending Friday night.
And it was only the beginning.
This story was originally published July 22, 2023 at 10:14 AM.
