Miami’s Messi craze – over the arrival of football superstar Lionel Messi, one of the most famous people in the world – reached a fever pitch last week when he was spotted at a Publix supermarket near Fort Lauderdale buying Lucky Charms and Froot Loops.
Shoppers yawned and snapped cell phone photos. Casual outing? Publicity stunt? Who cared? Mr Messi and his photogenic young family had landed in a football-crazy region that had been hoping to catch him for years. Mr Messi already looked like a local, dressed in shorts and flip flops.
South Florida has been consumed with frenzied fandom for Mr. Messi, the Argentine whose signing on Saturday marked a coup for Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami and for Miami itself, Latin America’s unofficial capital with a penchant for celebrity. When the team presented Mr. Messi to a packed stadium in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday night after a severe thunderstorm, he thanked the crowd in Spanish “for making us feel at home so quickly”.
“I am very happy that I chose to come to this city with my family,” he said. He is expected to make his debut in a game on Friday.
The team played a video montage of Miami celebrities welcoming Mr. Messi — Marc Anthony, DJ Khaled, Gloria Estefan — then presented a concert featuring Latin American pop singers Camilo and Ozuna.
Not since LeBron James declared in 2010 that he would “bring my talents to South Beach” (actually, downtown Miami) to play basketball for the Miami Heat has the region been so enamored with the impending presence of a sports figure. In the weeks since Mr Messi announced last month he would be signing for Inter Miami, artists have rushed to create murals of him all over the city. Restaurants have redesigned their menus to offer versions of what is said to be his favorite dish, breaded meat known as milanesa.
European and Latin American footballers, including 36-year-old Messi, have spent years buying property and vacationing in South Florida, in part because they enjoy a level of anonymity impossible elsewhere. But few would have expected Messi, who has played for club sides in Barcelona and Paris, to come to last place Inter Miami at this point rather than Saudi Arabia, where he was offered a more lucrative contract to finish off his storied career. to close. .
His arrival sparked a seven-page spread in The Miami Herald on Sunday. In a city once known for its part-time paparazzi — the actor Matt Damon, a former Miami Beach resident married to an Argentine, said in 2009 that photographers only harassed him on weekends — Mr. Messi was hounded by cameras.
He appears as a pink goat, a reference to Inter Miami’s team colors and his status as the “greatest of all time,” in a banner ad for Apple TV+, the MLS streaming partner with whom he signed a revenue-sharing deal. On a billboard of the Hard Rock Cafe, he sells a new Messi Chicken Sandwich.
Argentinian community in South Florida, the largest in the United Statesis swollen with joy that the South American country’s most recognized man is now one of his own.
“Argentins are immensely proud of Argentina, despite decades of political and economic turmoil,” said Gabriel Groisman, the former mayor of Bal Harbor, whose parents emigrated from Argentina in the late 1970s. “We only spoke Spanish at home. We literally had an Argentinian-style barbecue in the backyard five times a week.”
When Argentina, led by Mr Messi, won the World Cup for the first time in 36 years last year, caravans decked out with the country’s blue and white flags celebrated in a Miami Beach neighborhood known as Little Buenos Aires. Last week, Mr. Messi dined at Café Prima Pasta, an Argentinian neighborhood restaurant where the most expensive dish, a steak, costs $36.95. Fans showed up at the back door for autographs and selfies.
The National Football Federation of Argentina plans to build a $10 million training facility in North Bay Village, between Miami and Miami Beach. Mr. Messi reportedly owns a multi-million dollar apartment in an ultra-luxury tower whose selling points include a car lift in nearby Sunny Isles Beach.
For Argentines, football is “like going to church,” said Carlos Delfino, who moved to South Beach from Argentina more than 20 years ago. He owns Parrilla Liberty, a steakhouse that is a shrine to Mr. Messi and Diego Maradona, who led Argentina to the 1986 World Cup.
“Messi was definitely looking for safety, tranquility – and the beach,” said Delfino, who flew to Qatar in December for the World Cup final. “And people who are warm. Argentinians like to go get coffee, say hello to people.”
“We breathe our culture here: we know where to buy dulce de leche, yerba mate, facturas” or Argentinian pastries, said Maximiliano Alvarez, who commissioned a Messi mural in 2018 for his restaurant, Fiorito, in the Little Haiti neighborhood in Miami. The arrival of Mr. Messi has already attracted more customers.
“Messi coming here himself one day,” he said, “that’s the dream.”