On February 4, Inter Miami CF played the Hong Kong team in the Hong Kong stadium, where the match ended up with 1-4 in favour of the visitors.
However, the central star, Lionel Messy, didn't play this match because their medical team said he had a hamstring injury. Still, the coach Gerardo "Tata" Martino and Luis Suarez told at a news conference on Friday 2nd that Messi would play the most minutes in the game on Sunday.
Locals people wondered why Leo Messy didn't appear even in the press conference. Is he also injured from his mouth, or did they know he wouldn't play?
Also, when the match finished, the government offered a kind of symbolic tribute to the visitors, giving them medals; however, the TV camera catches how Messy skipped this, walking by behind secretly, avoiding shaking hands with the authorities and receiving the medal.
Finally, when the time came for the team photos, it was pretty strange that Messy stood behind, and as he was not that tall, he didn't even appear in the image. He seemed anxious and abandoned the grass quite soon, as expected. Then, suddenly, people heard a loud voice saying, "Please show some respect to Mr. Beckham," and people did not stop making booing sounds. Beckham started to say thanks to Hong Kong people and how thankful he was for this city, and they would come back for more entertainment. Still, at least he walked around the stadium greeting people with his hand and even took a picture with a soccer fan who jumped the security border; it seems he just wanted to calm angry spectators.
Outside the stadium, many people complained about a refund. They felt cheated because they expected to see Messy playing, and the government spent millions of dollars for this event; there was not any clause in the contract in case the main stars didn't play the match, and now, for future similar events, they are planning to do it.
At the end of the press conference, only the coach showed up and said he was deeply sorry not to put Messy or his fellow Luis Suarez and keep saving them for their official first match in the MLS competition on February 22.
The next preseason match is in Japan against Vissel Kobe on Wednesday, February 7, and fans are asking, will it happen the same? Or did they only slap Hong Kong fans?
I was planning to go, but after I saw the higher ticket prices, I decided not to go; apart from this, I saw the reselling tickets for almost USD 1000, which is out of reality, and I only watched on TV the second half where I feel disappointed too and more for those 38 thousand people who paid those high ticket prices and some even come from far away and what was supposed to be a great sporting event ended in disappointment.
Most of the pictures used in this post I got from TV.
This report was published via Actifit app (Android | iOS). Check out the original version here on actifit.io
Enjoy!