‘Leo’s Coming’: David Beckham Relishing Long Term Desire of Bringing Lionel Messi to Inter Miami – News18

Lionel Messi has enjoyed an amazing start to life in the USA with the David Beckham-owned Inter Miami, where he has managed to score thrice and make another assist in his two appearances to date.

Team owner and English football icon Beckham recently revealed that he had dreamt of bringing the Argentine World Cup winner to Miami shores one day ever since he announced the purchase of the franchise back in 2014.

Beckham shared details from his talk over dinner with co-owner Jorge Mas all those years back in which he had expressed his desire to bring the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner to the MLS.

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“I turn to Jorge and say, ‘One day, we need Messi to come to our club’. It was probably when we first met. I actually found on my phone the other day one of the first presentations that advertising agency Doubleday & Cartwright did — they mocked up one of the jerseys with the logo on and Leo was wearing it. That was 10 years ago,” Beckham said.

However, back then it was nothing more than a pipe dream as Messi and Barcelona seemed inseparable and seemed to mimick a match made in heaven that was going to withstand the test of time.

“We got on a plane and flew to Barcelona from London secretly. We snuck into a hotel, met Jorge Messi (Messi’s father and agent) and started the conversation. It purely went, ‘We would love your son to play for our team one day. We know he can’t come yet, but we would love to have Leo in Miami one day,” Beckham said.

However, due to Barca’s financial troubles as a result of poor economic management, Messi had to find pastures new a couple of years back and the Argentine opted to play in Ligue 1 with PSG.

Things at Paris did not go according to plan as despite domestic success, the Parisian club did not fare well at the continental tournament, UEFA Champions League and the fans turned on him.

The World Cup winner came disillusioned with life in France following a series of boo-ing and whistling incidents from the fans, which had a bearing on his decision not to extend his stay in Paris.

Beckham’s Inter Miami swooped in at the opportune time and managed to pull off probably the biggest coup in the history of football in North America.

Beckham shared how excited he was when Messi announced that he will be joining the MLS side and expressed his delight.

“I was in Japan with the family and woke up at 5 am because my phone kept vibrating,” Beckham remembers. “My wife was like, ‘Really?! Turn your phone off!’. I look on my phone and I’m like, ‘What’s happened? Something’s happened!’. I put my glasses on and I’m like, ‘Leo’s coming! It’s done! He has announced it!’. My wife was like, ‘What do you mean he has announced it?’. I said, ‘He has gone on TV and said he’s coming to Inter Miami!’,” the 48-year-old said.