{"id":741153,"date":"2026-07-03T16:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T16:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/741153\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T16:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T16:04:11","slug":"lionel-messi-makes-his-miami-homecoming-with-argentina-for-us-this-is-a-chance-to-celebrate-him-argentina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/741153\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi makes his Miami homecoming with Argentina: \u2018For us this is a chance to celebrate him\u2019 | Argentina"},"content":{"rendered":"

Take a walk around Miami\u2019s Little Buenos Aires neighborhood, and nearly everyone there will tell you a story about meeting Lionel Messi<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s the bakery employee, working at the counter, who will tell you about Messi\u2019s visit there and how much the Inter Miami<\/a> and Argentina captain enjoyed the medialunas. Down the street, someone at the coffee shop will talk of spotting Messi in traffic, behind the wheel of a luxury SUV. Messi, that person and others will tell you, will flash you a wide smile as he waits for the signal to change, and may even entertain the idea of an autograph.<\/p>\n

And of course there are the people who will claim to have intersected with the Argentinian legend at Publix, the local supermarket chain. That will feel farcical, of course, until that same person produces a selfie. You see Messi smiling there, posing alongside a fan in the cereal aisle. It will feel like AI, but it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Three years after shocking the football world with a move to Major League Soccer, Messi will see his status as a Miami everyman (at least as much as he can be) and his deity-like reputation for his country collide on Friday night when Argentina<\/a> faces Cape Verde at Miami Stadium. The match is a homecoming for Messi, who arrived in the image-obsessed city in 2023 as just another megacelebrity and has since been welcomed wholeheartedly as something approaching a native son \u2013 undoubtedly the most at home he\u2019s felt since his days in Barcelona.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us this is just a chance to celebrate him,\u201d says 27-year-old Thiago Gomez, in Spanish. He is quick to identify himself as an Inter Miami season ticket holder. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to have him here [every day] but it is something different entirely to see him play for the national team \u2026 you get the sense that he loves playing for Miami but he\u2019s clearly possessed right now with Argentina, with the World Cup<\/a>, with all of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Messi\u2019s arrival at Inter Miami was scarcely believable. He was arguably the world\u2019s greatest-ever player and the most recognizable human being on the planet to boot. The move was less about football \u2013 though Messi left it clear that that was still a priority \u2013 and more about family and privacy. He\u2019d just navigated a pair of nightmarish years at Paris Saint-Germain, seasons that took a toll on Messi and his wife and children alike. Inter Miami offered him a chance to continue his career, make his family a priority and take just the slightest step out of the global spotlight.<\/p>\n

In doing so, he joined a long list of footballers who took refuge from prying eyes in the United States. Pel\u00e9. George Best. Johan Cruyff. Thierry Henry. David Beckham. The list goes on. While anonymity was an option for some of them \u2013 Henry managed to take the train to the stadium on some days \u2013 a total disappearance was never an option for the Argentinian. He is adored globally and in Miami, with its massive South and Central American population, Messi was always going to be under the microscope.<\/p>\n

Inter Miami won the 2025 MLS Cup with Lionel Messi leading the way. Photograph: Michael Pimentel\/ISI Photos\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

And so it was initially, with media stalking his every move and fans waiting patiently outside Inter Miami\u2019s training facility in hopes of getting a mere glimpse of him. Things were even more chaotic on the road, where fans would stalk the team\u2019s hotel or follow their bus to the stadium. Messi was spotted at restaurants, at NBA games and upscale shopping malls. Sighting him became a sport.<\/p>\n

By 2026, that dynamic has disappeared almost entirely. A handful of fans \u2013 mostly children \u2013 still pursue him but by and large Messi\u2019s life in Miami has entered some semblance of normalcy. In three years, he has brought the city a championship and spoken publicly about his affection for the place and how he\u2019s been treated. Miami will never be Barcelona, where Messi is a prodigal son and spent the bulk of his formative footballing years, or Argentina, where he is revered. But the city has won a meaningful and significant chunk of the Argentinian\u2019s heart as well, something he does not hide.<\/p>\n

Nobody could teach Inter Miami anything about marketing, and the club has made its signature pink a staple in its home city, with thousands sporting Messi shirts every day. On Wednesday evening, those splashes of color were joined by a tidal wave of blue and white as Messi\u2019s Argentina touched down in the city, along with all of their fans. The defending champions have been more well-represented than any other team at the tournament (with the exception of the three host nations, perhaps) and their fans have turned stadiums in Kansas City and Dallas into non-stop parties.<\/p>\n

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On Thursday evening, Buenos Aires Bakery & Cafe was overrun with locals and visitors sporting the albiceleste. The eatery sits smack on the middle of the four or five-block collection of businesses some call Little Buenos Aires, just off the A1A in North Beach. Cumbia and Argentinian rock music played in the background as Argentina fans reviewed their side\u2019s prospects for the next day\u2019s game. Most locals here could only dream of attending the match in person and the bakery is prepared to host many of them \u2013 provided they pay a $20 cover and spend at least $15, far from the normal policy, where some customers camp out for hours with a single cup of coffee and a newspaper.<\/p>\n

Five miles down Collins Avenue, in South Beach, another throng of Argentina fans gathered in front of Baires, an Argentinian steakhouse. No fan of the country\u2019s national team would need any help professing their love for Messi, but a crew of locals were clearly been pushed along by several bottles of wine, as they\u2019d wandered up from the Argentina banderazo, the large pre-match rally that gathers many of the team\u2019s traveling supporters.<\/p>\n

It was a long, but celebratory day. The conversation mostly centered around Messi\u2019s exploits in the group stage: six goals in three games has made him the tournament\u2019s joint top scorer and earned him the all-time goalscoring record in men\u2019s World Cup play.<\/p>\n

Fans in Miami will have ample opportunity to watch Messi in pink. Earlier this year, he signed a contract extension that will potentially keep him attached to Inter Miami through the end of the 2028 season.<\/p>\n

The chance they have this week \u2013 to watch the greatest player in the history of the sport take the pitch at a World Cup in his adopted home \u2013 is something much more rare, something every Argentinian fan in Miami seems deeply aware of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Take a walk around Miami\u2019s Little Buenos Aires neighborhood, and nearly everyone there will tell you a story…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-741153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}