 "Lionel Messi in for a busy pre-season with Inter Miami announcing five-match tour across four countries")
Argentine superstar Lionel Messi is in for a fairly busy pre-season tour with Inter Miami set to depart on a five-match trip that gets underway later this month and will span four countries, the reigning Supporters’ Shield winners announced on Friday.
Three of those games in preparation for the 2025 Major League Soccer (MLS) season will be taking place in South and Central America, the first of which is against Peruvian champion Club Universitario de Deportes in Lima on 29 January.
From there, the club goes to Panama City to take on Sporting San Miguelito on 2 February, followed by a trip to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, for a 8 February match against Club Deportivo Olimpia.
The first and last pre-season matches were already known: Inter Miami will play Mexican power Club America in Las Vegas on 18 January and close the exhibition slate in Tampa, Florida, against MLS rival Orlando City on 14 February.
“We’re very excited to unveil the five matches against domestic and international opponents across the Americas that will prepare us for a highly anticipated 2025," Inter Miami president of football operations Raul Sanllehi said. “These fixtures will put us in the best possible position ahead of an unparalleled campaign with various competitions we’re playing for this year — the FIFA Club World Cup, CONCACAF Champions Cup, Leagues Cup and MLS.”
The dream takes flight ✈️🌎 The Americas Preseason Tour kicks off soon.🩷🖤
— Inter Miami CF (@InterMiamiCF) January 10, 2025
Read more here: https://t.co/jqbqdArgIg pic.twitter.com/uJmzqKihBM
With 34 regular season MLS matches, five pre-season games and the three cup tournaments, Inter Miami could easily exceed 50 matches this season — and probably will play even more than that. And that doesn’t even count international matches for Messi and likely several other Inter Miami players.
This year’s pre-season tour isn’t quite as ambitious as the one Inter Miami planned last year, with matches in Dallas, El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong and Japan on that schedule. Much of that trip didn’t go as envisioned: A Messi vs. Cristiano Ronaldo matchup in Saudi Arabia didn’t happen because Ronaldo was sidelined by injury, and fans in Asia were angered by Messi missing one match there and playing sparingly in another. Some refunds were even issued to help appease disappointed ticketholders, some of whom spent more than $600 with hopes of seeing Messi play.
Inter Miami’s training camp starts with physicals on Saturday. The first practice under new coach Javier Mascherano is Monday.
With AP inputs
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