by The atmosphere surrounding Lionel Messi’s latest game at the Dignity Health Sports Park reflected the kind of energy, anticipation and hype that permeated the place when the England international brought it home.
David Beckham, that international, made Major League Soccer a global phenomenon during his 5 1/2 seasons with the Los Angeles Galaxy. Messi – who became the first MLS player to win the FIFA Ballon d’Or last year as a member of Inter Miami – is now the league’s focal point to extend that influence in his first full season.
But without Beckham, the idea of Messi playing in MLS would be like a child’s fantasy.
“If it’s not for him, there’s no Leo Messi,” said MLS Commissioner Don Garber. “Someone wrote this article or a headline that said, ‘Will David Beckham change the course of soccer in America?’ He only did it once. He did it twice.”
Beckham, one of the co-founders and co-owners of Inter Miami, not only handed over the Argentine superstar but turned the club into the Miami chapter of the FC Barcelona Alumni Association when he signed three of his former club mates: Luis Suárez , Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets.
All four started on Sunday night against the Galaxy, with Messi and Alba combining for a picturesque goal in the second minute of second-half stoppage time to force a 1-1 draw.
Messi started the sequence by intercepting Miguel Berry’s clearance. The Argentina captain then made a series of passes with Scotland as they both headed towards the net. Messi had to parry to get Scotland’s final ball, a cross from the left side of the penalty area. But Messi slipped forward and used his left foot to tap an 8-yard shot that soared under the crossbar.
The crowd of 27,642 – the largest in 10 years and the largest for a Galaxy regular season game in the stadium’s history – turned out. Messi and Alba hugged. The crowd responded with chants of “Me-ssi, Me-ssi, Me-ssi!”
That crowd included over 30 stars from entertainment and sports – including Novak Djokovic, Edward Norton, Halle Berry, Liv Tyler and Halle BerryHalle Berry.
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Meanwhile, with everyone in his room reacting with excitement, Beckham scored Messi’s goal with stoic satisfaction.
“Everyone sees his quality on the ball,” said Galaxy Manager Greg Vanney. “To me, it’s his brain. That’s what he sees on the field. It recognizes different spaces. He knows where everyone is all the time. He already has the look of the next set of plays lined up – not just the next pass, but the next set of passes. It’s just 90 minutes of computing.”
Vanney knows firsthand how much of a difference an international superstar can make. Vanney played for the Galaxy in his first six seasons, 1996-2001, before moving to Europe, then ended his career with the Galaxy in 2008 – Beckham’s first full season in Los Angeles.
“We had a fan base of maybe a few hundred thousand people before he came,” Vanney said. “When I was in Europe before, people knew about the MLS, but they didn’t know the MLS. They didn’t see the league. Then he comes in. Now, it’s in the millions and it’s all over the world. Suddenly, people in countries that paid no attention to the Galaxy did.”
An enthusiastic day ended with Messi’s goal. About three hours before kick-off, fans were in stitches in a parking lot that was almost 60% full. A band of five Mexican-American musicians played regional music. One fan wore a shirt that proclaimed, “Messi is the GOAT,” with the “G” firmly embedded in the Galaxy crest.
Sophie Nicolaou, who has covered MLS for talkSPORT since 2011, drew a fundamental difference between the reaction to Messi’s first road game against the Galaxy and the fans’ reaction to Beckham and Zlatan Ibrahimović.
“I’ve seen it really crazy in the Beckham era, and then it was really crazy in the Zlatan era,” she said. “But this is about the earliest game I’ve ever been to, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him that busy 2 1/2 hours before kickoff. You can feel the vibe and feel the atmosphere. I know people want to compare Beckham and Messi all the time and both of them are more involved in the league in different ways. But this, this is crazy.”
In the stadium, most of the fans recognized the Galaxy or Messi. The majority of the latter wore a black Miami road jersey with pink trim bearing Messi’s name and a ’10’ on the back. One family wore matching black Messi jerseys, with the daughter riding on her father’s back. In another, the husband wore an all-pink Messi Miami outfit – complete with shorts and socks – while his two daughters wore pink Messi jerseys and his wife wore a black one.
“It shows you what kind of cultural icon he is,” Nicolaou told Messi. “It was the same with Beckham; people attended matches in Manchester United or Real Madrid shirts. That’s when players cross over and go beyond football and into pop culture. I think Messi and Beckham and Zlatan, to a certain extent, are crossing over and inserting themselves into popular culture just because of their popularity.”
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For Eduard Cauich, sports editor of the Spanish-language edition of the Los Angeles Times, Messi is more focused on soccer than Beckham’s diversifying influence on pop culture.
“Beckham was a lot different,” Cauich said. “Beckham was a soccer player but he was something else that touched many, many things; he was a model. I think Messi is more for people who enjoy and respect soccer at the international level. Even the people who don’t like Messi respect him because of his talent. It’s a pleasure to be here. I think the fans are more mature now and have more respect for a star like that.”
One Galaxy fan even notices a difference. “I think Messi has a different influence right now,” said Johnny Cano, who has supported the club “since the first game of the Rose Bowl,” in 1996. “I think everything has to do with everything from the World Cup to to the World Cup. the clubs he played for. It is much more famous, more recognized. I think he’s a lot different from Beckham without a doubt.”
Perhaps the biggest difference is MLS’s ability to manage the demands of an international superstar. Joe Tutino, the radio voice of the Galaxy since 1999, remembers Beckham’s debut in July 2007 in a friendly against Chelsea.
“That was crazy electric,” Tutino said. “I think at the time, MLS didn’t know how to handle a superstar like David Beckham, and the Galaxy certainly didn’t know how to handle him from the start. I think MLS is a bit more mature now.”
But hoopla remains hoopla.
“The hype is up there,” said Miguel Gonzalez, who belongs to the Angel City Brigade, the Galaxy’s largest group of supporters. “When Beckham was around, everyone was excited to see Beckham. As soon as we found out Messi was coming, he was the talk of the town.”
Garber hopes the excitement will increase MLS’s visibility and spur growth.
“To me, this is a lot about where we were in 2007 and where we are today,” Garber said in reference to Beckham’s first year in MLS. “I feel like this league has so much momentum, and it was last year before Leo was signed. We were on track to have our best year ever, and we succeeded. We launched our Apple partnership. Launch of the League Cup. We had so many exciting things coming in. And Leo comes in and takes it to another level.”
Vanney believes that, because of his experience with Beckham, Messi is the perfect vehicle to achieve that goal.
“They couldn’t have picked a better player at that moment to take our league to the next level and bring the attention he was capable of,” Vanney said. “At this point, I think they couldn’t have picked a better player than Messi to do what he can do, which is a whole other level.”
