Sorry Hong Kong, but Inter Miami was smart to rest Messi on its way-too-long preseason tour | Opinion
This international scandal over Lionel Messi missing a game in Hong Kong is as hilarious as it was predictable.
Inter Miami invited this type of controversy in undertaking an extraordinary 25,000-mile, seven-match, five-nation preseason tour that has been closer to preseason tour-ment in the runup to the February 21 start of its Major League Soccer season.
The grueling trek is a brilliant idea from a financial standpoint and to further grow the Inter Miami brand. Messi’s affiliation with Miami surely is a major reason why Hard Rock Stadium was gifted seven 2026 World Cup matches including a quarterfinal and the bronze medal game.
That the club has Messi on parade milking his name for maximum profit is understandable. This is his second season here and he’s signed only through the 2025 season. His aura will linger; Miami will always be the MLS team that had Messi. But he will take most of the magic of the Inter Miami brand with him when he leaves.
So you can’t blame the club squeezing everything it can while it can from Messi.
You can question it a bit, though.
You can wonder if a lengthy international tour is as good for the team and its preparation as it is for the club’s profits.
Messi is 36. The other three stars that form the hub of the team are around the same age. Most MLS teams play one preseason friendly, as Miami did a year ago. Now the club is taking its aging team around the world, and the team was winless (three losses, one draw) before Sunday’s controversial victory.
We saw what happened last season, when seven Leagues Cup games and six U.S. Open Cup matches interspersed with MLS play left Inter Miami out of gas as league play ended with Miami falling short of securing a playoff spot.
Coach Tata Martino admitted that near the end of last season his was “a team that was spent.”
Now they risk a team worn out before the season even begins.
Everything about Messi is a cartoonish exaggeration of reaction.
We already knew that Messi inspired maniacal worship on his travels in soccer anywhere in the world. Throngs of idolaters gather just to watch the team buses arrive. Inter Miami instantly went from a lower-tier MLS club to an international power-brand when Messi joined last year.
You cannot spell Messiah without Messi.
Now, in Hong Kong, we have seen the opposite out-sized overreaction when fans are unexpectedly denied seeing their futbol god because Miami dares to hold him out of a fairly meaningless preseason exhibition match.
Messi not playing in Sunday’s 4-1 Miami win disappointed and angered fans who filled Hong Kong’s 40,000-seat stadium. They booed throughout, booed whenever a substitution was not Messi, and later chanted “Refund! Refund! Refund!” in both English and Cantonese. They’d paid big money not to see Inter Miami or its lesser stars but to see Messi. Tickets cost between 880 and 4,880 Hong Kong dollars, or about $113 to $624 U.S.
In the postgame trophy presentation amid fireworks, remarks by Inter Miami co-owner owner David Beckham were drowned out in jeering whistles.
The Hong Kong government itself joined the outrage, saying in a statement: “Messi was not able to play in the friendly game today and the government and fans are equally disappointed at the arrangements by the event organizer. The event organizer owes fans an explanation.”
Dear Hong Kong government: The promoter of the game had no say in Inter Miami’s decision to rest Messi (citing team medical advice), unless it was in the contract that he play.
Fans can demand but should never expect refunds when their team loses, or when a star player doesn’t play.
Heck, I was a kid at Fenway Park for the first time, circa 1969 or ‘70, to see my idol Carl Yastrzemski play in person for the first time. He didn’t play that day. Some minor injury. (Strained calf?) I was devastated. I don’t recall my Dad suing anybody.
But when the player is Messi and it’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance for worshipers to see him in far flung Hong Kong, disappointment is magnified.
Martino said the decision not to deploy Messi was made on late notice under the recommendation of medical staff.
“We understand the reception from the fans towards the absence,” Martino said.
Messi reportedly is dealing with abductor and hamstring issues.
“We also had to consider our obligations with the upcoming MLS [season],” said Martino, which should go without saying.
The team’s priority right now should be getting its superstar healthy and rested for the MLS season, not parading him out like a show pony to make Hong Kong happy.
Inter Miami moves on now to Japan for a match on Wednesday.
And Messi should sit again if that is the medical advice -- no matter the gnashing and howling that would ensue.
This story was originally published February 5, 2024 at 11:24 AM.
