KANSAS CITY, MO — Have you seen Lionel Messi play live and in person yet? You need to.
Even when he’s busy beating your hometown team — as he did with a goal and an assist in a 3-2 victory over Sporting Kansas City on Saturday — you can’t help but watch his every move, laugh and just shrug. What? You have a plan to stop him? Okay.
The win puts Inter Miami atop the table as he dives head-first into his first full season in MLS, touring the country and continent with three of his longtime Barcelona teammates and close friends. Next stop: KC. My hometown in the Midwest.
Through the ups and downs, a soccer city is born
The last time Sporting Kansas City — ahem, the Kansas City Wizards — played here, back in the summer of 2010, 52,424 turned up at Arrowhead Stadium for a friendly against Manchester United. That day played no small part in reviving and relaunching one of MLS’s original organizations.
It was only five years earlier that the sport wasn’t long for this city, without a viable ownership group and the team nearly sold and moved to Rochester, New York. Now, the sport is virtually inescapable in this city, where Sporting KC play in front of sold-out crowds inside their own stadium week in and week out after narrowly surviving MLS’s contraction and relocation era; where the NWSL’s Kansas City Current opened their own downtown stadium just last month; where Copa America 2024 and the 2026 World Cup will be played. Kansas City now has a legitimate claim to being “Soccer City USA” and few can argue with it.
It wasn’t always like this. Trust me. I was there. Three years before the Man United friendly, the Wizards’ average attendance was 11,586 (roughly 15 percent capacity) during their final season at Arrowhead, before they moved to an independent league baseball stadium for three years. Somehow, it was an improvement. Hardly a scene befitting the greatest player of all time, is it?
But, Arrowhead is where the Wizards — ahem, the Wiz — played MLS’s inaugural game back in 1996. This league and this team have been around long enough to have real “I remember when” history. Back then, the phrase “American soccer culture” hadn’t yet been typed on the Internet, because American soccer culture didn’t exist. 28 years (to the day) and a couple of name changes later, American soccer culture is alive and very well in the American heartland.
Lionel Messi takes over, leads Inter Miami past Sporting KC
There was even a moment on Saturday…