{"id":265450,"date":"2026-05-10T05:54:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T05:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/265450\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T05:54:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T05:54:21","slug":"toronto-fc-draw-historic-crowd-for-lionel-messi-miami-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/265450\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto FC draw historic crowd for Lionel Messi & Miami visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lionel Messi<\/a> helped make history both on and off the field during MLS Matchday 12.<\/p>\n

In front of a record 44,828 fans at BMO Field, Inter Miami CF<\/a>‘s legendary No. 10 set a record of his own<\/a> to guide the Herons to a 4-2 win<\/a> at Toronto FC<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Toronto set a new club attendance benchmark on Saturday with Messi as a star attraction. The 38-year-old lived up to his top billing, producing 1g\/2a and becoming the fastest player in MLS history to reach 100 goal contributions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n Messi mania<\/p>\n

Saturday’s historic turnout continued a trend of fans showing up in droves to watch Miami and Messi.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last month, 75,824 fans filled Empower Field at Mile High as Miami earned a 3-2 win<\/a> over the Colorado Rapids<\/a>, marking the second-highest single-game attendance<\/a> in MLS history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That followed the 75,673 fans at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum who took in Miami’s visit to LAFC<\/a> on MLS is Back weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another all-time Top 10 crowd – 72,026 fans at M&T Bank Stadium – witnessed Messi and Miami’s visit to D.C. United<\/a> on MLS Matchday 3.<\/p>\n

“It’s always an honor,” Messi told Apple TV after playing for another record crowd. “And I’m thankful in all the stadiums for how people treat me wherever we go.”<\/p>\n

\n World Cup venue<\/p>\n

Toronto’s new attendance record comes just weeks before BMO Field is set to host six games at this summer’s 2026 FIFA World Cup<\/a> – including co-host Canada<\/a>‘s Group B opener against Bosnia & Herzegovina on June 12.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An additional 17,000 temporary seats were added in the lead-up to this summer’s tournament, expanding the venue’s capacity to 45,736 to meet World Cup standards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s a world-class stadium. It’s phenomenal to have seen the progression over the years and yeah, it feels like a really, really good stadium,” said Toronto head Robin Fraser.<\/p>\n

“It feels like it’s going to be a great place for the World Cup.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi helped make history both on and off the field during MLS Matchday 12. In front of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[16163,123,125,124,76891,4959,8005,112727],"class_list":["post-265450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-match-reaction","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-priority-match","tag-sendtonews","tag-toronto-fc","tag-torvsmia-05-09-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}