The Miami Heat finished second in this month’s NBA playoffs, while the Florida Panthers advanced to the NHL’s Stanley Cup final in Sunrise. Then there’s the matter of Lionel Messi joining the MLS’s Inter Miami CF.
The winner of the 2022 World Cup will join his new teammates in a matter of weeks, and there is local disbelief to go along with the enormous joy. It won’t feel true until Messi is photographed with the club’s co-owner, David Beckham, waving a pink and black team scarf aloft.
The announcements thus far have been strangely understated. Messi says he has “decided to continue the path in Miami” and the club confirmed his pending arrival via a cryptic Instagram post that went out to around a million followers. The account has since amassed another 7m followers. To put that number into context, the NFL’s most valuable franchise, the Dallas Cowboys, has 4.5m. Then again, Messi himself has half a billion. The opportunities this presents for the team and league are gigantic.
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“It’s surreal, but it’s real. He is coming, even though they’re not saying much,” says Franco Panizo, of the Miami Total Futbol podcast. “It’ll feel more real when he gets here and when he plays his first game it’s going to be spectacular.
“Besides the cameras and the glitz and glamour, just seeing him on the field and the atmosphere in the stadium is going to be incredible. This is going to be transformative for Inter Miami.”
Local fervor even permeated the intense setting of the NBA finals. “I’m so excited for the city to have a player of that caliber here,” said Miami Heat global star Jimmy Butler, a huge soccer enthusiast.
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