Inter Miami CF forward Lionel Messi celebrates after scoring a goal against the Columbus Crew during the first half at Lower.com Field in Columbus, Ohio, on Oct. 2.Joseph Maiorana/Reuters
It was a tale of two tickets in Toronto this past week, as ardent fans of live entertainment had to dig deep if they wanted to get their hands on the some of the priciest – and most desirable – tickets in town.
British band Oasis launched its official presale Thursday for next year’s tour dates, with tickets starting at just over $300, much to the chagrin of diehard fans of the Gallagher brothers, reunited for the first time in 15 years.
And it wasn’t any cheaper to gain admission to the biggest sporting event of this weekend, with Lionel Messi and Inter Miami north of the border to play Toronto FC at BMO Field on Saturday. With tickets at the box office long since sold out, many season-seat holders had posted theirs on resale sites, with the cheapest tickets on Ticketmaster selling for $537 a pair as of Friday afternoon.
The trouble is, much like the eternally warring Gallagher brothers, fans had no idea if Messi will actually turn up to play.
Miami clinched the Supporters’ Shield as the best regular-season side with its 3-2 win in Columbus on Wednesday against the MLS Cup defending-champion Crew, so it has already secured home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, which begin Oct. 23. But with two games left to play for the Herons – Saturday in Toronto and Oct. 19 against New England – Miami can establish a Major League Soccer record for points in a season with 74, one more than New England tallied three years ago.
Further deepening the angst is the fact that Messi, now 37, has endured an injury-plagued season, missing almost two months after injuring his ankle in the Copa America final in July. That caused him to miss nine consecutive MLS games, including his team’s 3-1 win over Toronto in Florida in July.
Messi is no stranger to leaving Canadian soccer fans disappointed this year, and that’s without mentioning the two occasions he helped Argentina beat the national men’s team at the Copa America this summer. Back in May, he stayed home in Miami along with fellow Inter stars Luis Suarez and Sergio Busquets when the Herons visited Vancouver’s B.C. Place to play the Whitecaps. While the aging trio of former Barcelona stars were spared the longest road trip in MLS – more than 4,600 kilometres – the decision left more than 51,000 fans upset that one of the biggest stars in soccer history was a no-show. The Whitecaps responded by giving everyone in attendance a free ticket to another 2024 regular-season game.
Given that Messi played the entire 90 minutes on Wednesday, scoring twice to help secure the team’s second piece of silverware since he arrived in South Florida last year, monitoring his star’s minutes is something that the Miami head coach is very mindful of.
“We have to look into the minutes that they’ve played, and with Leo, we know that playing more minutes puts him in a better rhythm, and we have been able to see that on the field,” Gerardo (Tata) Martino said Friday. “But we have to continue looking at him in the next few hours, and the rest of the group to assess and decide tomorrow’s team.”
After the no-show debacle in Vancouver, and another that took place in Chicago last October in what was ultimately the highest-grossing game in MLS history, with more than 62,000 filling Chicago’s Soldier Field, Martino can appreciate the disappointment. But his players and team come first.
“I understand people’s expectations and the fact of coming to see him,” he said of Messi playing in Toronto. “Even so, we will try to decide the best for his health fundamentally.”
For those looking for positive omens over whether the Argentine national-team captain will play, there is always the timing of Saturday’s game. What was originally scheduled alongside six other MLS games in the usual 7:30 p.m. ET slot for league broadcaster Apple TV has now been moved to a 4 p.m. kickoff time. That positions it as the first MLS game to kick off that day and the only one until the remainder start in the early evening. Add to that the fact that Messi has a profit-sharing deal with the tech giant and it would be surprising if he didn’t see the pitch at some point on Saturday.
While the ‘will he, won’t he’ quandary has left fans in a bind, it has hardly done any favours to the Toronto FC players and coaching staff, who are in something of a bind themselves.
Wednesday’s 4-1 home defeat to the New York Red Bulls has left TFC in a do-or-die situation against Miami, knowing that only a win will do to preserve any shot at the playoffs. Anything less than three points will bring the curtain down on John Herdman’s first full season in charge in exactly the same way as the previous three ended – with an early start to the off-season.
With uncertainty in the air, Herdman is preparing as though the big guns will be in Miami’s lineup at some point on Saturday.
“Well, they’re all here, and I think that’s exciting for our fans,” he said. “I think whenever Miami are in town, you’re looking to see if Suarez, Messi, Busquets, [Jordi] Alba, just legends of the game are going to be on the field.”
Given the aura that follows Messi’s every move, both on the field and off, Herdman knows that getting his players – especially some of the younger heads on his squad – to forget about the living legend that they’ve been watching in the Champions League for much of the past 20 years will be the first step to getting their heads into a crucial game.
“That mystique, I would hope, just dissipates the second that whistle kicks off, but it’s pretty obvious,” he said. “When you see a player like Messi in and around the field, it’s pretty easy to get starry eyed.”
Having lined up against him twice at this summer’s Copa America, most recently in the 2-0 semi-final loss, Richie Laryea is better acquainted than most on the TFC squad with the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner. With Miami taking aim at the MLS points record, he assumes Messi and Co. will play. But given the hoopla around the game – Miami’s first visit to Toronto in the Messi era – Laryea is just trying to focus on the game and shut out the outside noise, including that made by friends and family trying to hit him up with ticket requests.
“It’s a do-or-die game,” he said. “I think maybe not all, but some guys on the team have played already in some pretty big games. But yeah, the Messi effect is real. I’ve played against him a couple times now this summer, so hopefully my family and friends will die down and not care too much about that.”
And while for fans a coveted ticket to Saturday’s game – and the obligatory selfie shots from the stands – will be treasured mementoes from a big soccer Saturday in the Six, for players, there’s the opportunity for a souvenir for the ages. Once that final whistle goes – win or lose – a beeline will be made toward the star attraction with one lucky TFC player likely going home with a game-worn jersey from one of the sport’s true immortals.
Just don’t expect that person to be Laryea.
“Obviously, it’d be great to get his jersey, but I can speak for myself. I won’t be in a queue waiting for his jersey. That’s just not how I am. That’s nothing against him. That’s just me. He’s still the best player ever.”