Inter Miami has arrived in Tokyo, the last stop on their world pre-season tour. They arrived a day after their controversial trip to Hong Kong.
A lot of people were angry at the MLS team because star player Lionel Messi didn’t play in their 4-1 win over a Hong Kong XI on Sunday.
Approximately 40,000 people paid a lot of money to see Messi play, but he had to sit on the bench because he hurt his hamstring in the previous part of the tour in Saudi Arabia.At halftime, David Beckham, the team’s president and co-owner, gave a speech. Fans were booing him, and angry ones even kicked Messi’s head off an outside advertising board.
After giving the producers a grant to let the game happen, the Hong Kong government also wanted to know what was going on. In the same way, Inter Miami boss Gerardo Martino asked for “forgiveness” for not putting Messi on. They will be glad that their tour is over now that it has reached its final destination. Their last game is set for Wednesday against Vissel Kobe.
Messi was seen getting off the team plane on Monday, but it’s still not clear if he will play because of his leg problem.When Jordi Alba, another star player for Barcelona, got off the train in Tokyo, he was all smiles, and their other teammates followed suit.
These events happen 24 hours after the chaos in Hong Kong. Messi was hurt last week and could only play seven minutes in their loss to Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr.
Then, he didn’t play at all on Sunday, along with Luis Suarez, which the fans didn’t like.
The Hong Kong government said it could take away $2 million in funding from the people who helped bring Inter Miami to the city, which made fans even more angry.
For all sports fans, the organizer had to give an explanation, it said.
Fans allegedly knew when they bought tickets that they wouldn’t get their money back if Messi didn’t play.Coach Gerardo Martino of Miami said that the choice was made by the team’s medical staff after they looked at the situation on Sunday morning.
“We understand how disappointed the fans are that Leo Messi isn’t there,” Martino told the press.
“We know that a lot of fans are upset, and we ask that they forgive us.”
“The risk was too high for us to send Leo on for at least a while.”
In the middle of the second half, fans in Hong Kong Stadium chanted “We want Messi” because they were dying to see the best football player of his time play in the much-anticipated exhibition game.
In the last ten minutes, when it became clear that the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner would not even make a short appearance, the booing got louder.
Event organizers, who called it “Tatler XFEST,” said in a statement that they were “extremely disappointed” that neither Messi nor Suarez, who plays for Uruguay, went to the game.
Despite what some news outlets said, Tatler did not know that Messi or Suarez were not going to play before the game, they said.
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