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HARRISON, NEW JERSEY — The conversation in the buildup to Lionel Messi’s MLS debut on was dominated by numbers. The price tag for the cheapest seats soared as the New York Red Bulls’ match against Inter Miami neared; the cost to see Messi reportedly ranged from $311 to the five-figure mark. The exorbitant entry fees kept rising even though the possibility that Messi would play more than a cameo appearance dwindled since the match was his third in a week. For the 26,000-plus at Red Bull Arena on Saturday, though, that second part did not matter much.
Messi mania was hard to avoid in and around Harrison, New Jersey, where the path to Red Bull Arena was lined with vendors selling unlicensed merchandise that included jerseys, scarves, flags and bucket hats emblazoned with the player’s name. Music, air horns and excited chatter served as the pre-match soundtrack. Inside, multi-hyphenate Lin-Manuel Miranda, rapper French Montana and soccer stars Sam Kerr and Kristie Mewis settled into their seats. It was a Messi-themed festival, an experience that follows the World Cup winner everywhere he goes but is only reserved solely for his presence.
It also meant that, despite a game playing out on the field, just about every set of eyeballs at Red Bull Arena was on the Inter Miami bench, where Messi sat for 60 minutes. Chants of “We want Messi!” started ringing out in the fourth minute and returned throughout the hour-long wait for the player. Though a pro-Miami crowd cheered when Diego Gomez scored the game’s first goal in the 37th minute, the match was a side note for an hour and truly played second fiddle when Messi began warmups around the 50th-minute mark.
Roughly ten minutes later, the people got what they came for. Red Bull Arena has hardly ever been louder than when Messi finally entered the match, though what they eventually saw was a mostly unmemorable 30-minute shift from him — minus the one…
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