After all the hype he has been the subject of for a good week, Lionel Messi finally finds himself on the grass.
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The CA$79 million player had his first training session with his Inter Miami CF teammates at the team’s training center on Tuesday morning.
Messi appeared smiling and ran with his teammates in addition to chatting with everyone, including striker Josef Martinez.
He wasn’t the only newcomer to the pitch as Spanish midfielder Sergio Busquets was on the pitch with his teammates for the first time.
scrutinized
We know that Messi’s arrival in MLS is historic news that risks changing the future of the first division circuit, but it was even more palpable in some photos that appeared on social networks.
We could see the disproportionate number of members of the media who were at the training center of Inter Miami for this first session of the Argentinian.
There were a good hundred people held back by a cord on the sidelines, all for one player.
It’s the kind of crowd you usually see for the MLS Cup final. This was at least the case during the editions preceding the pandemic.
reunion
It was also the official reunion between Messi and Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino who was appointed as Inter’s head coach at the end of June.
The pair know each other well as Martino managed Messi, as well as Sergio Busquets, with Barcelona in 2013-2014.
But the ties go deeper than that in Messi’s case as Martino went to manage the Argentina national team for two years after his time at Barcelona.
The two Argentinians also came through Newell’s Old Boys, Messi’s training club where Martino made three spells during his playing career.
Changes
Needless to say, the arrival of Messi upsets the MLS since the commissioner, Don Garber, has not ruled out the addition of natural grass in certain stadiums to accommodate Messi, who has played most of his career on this type of surface.
There are actually a few MLS clubs that play on a synthetic surface, which doesn’t appeal to elite players.
Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, New England, Charlotte and Vancouver have this type of surface.
“MLS promotes a lot of international games and we’ve been able to put natural grass in those stadiums, but we’ve never done that for a regular season game,” he told a group. reporters recently adding that teams can install natural grass on top of synthetic.
“I expect teams to adopt this solution, but there is a lot of work to do to make it work.”