Global Courant
A man walks past a poster of an upcoming soccer invitation between Argentina and Australia at a bus stop in Beijing on June 9, 2023.
Wang Zhao | Afp | Getty Images
Argentine superstar Lionel Messi arrived in Beijing on Saturday for a friendly match before leaving a storied European career behind to join Major League Soccer side Inter Miami as a free agent.
His arrival was announced in a post on the official Weibo social media site of promoter International Football Invitation featuring video of players disembarking from a plane ahead of Thursday’s Argentina-Australia game at the Chinese capital’s recently rebuilt Workers’ Stadium.
Messi, who won the World Cup in Qatar in December and is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all time, confirmed this week that he will leave French champions Paris St Germain for the American league.
This is the Argentina captain’s seventh visit to China and his first since 2017.
He has received a warm welcome on each of his previous visits to China, which despite the struggles of the men’s national team, which has only played once in the World Cup, has a huge football fan base.
Australia and Argentina last met at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar in the round of 16, where Messi was one of the goalscorers as his team won 2-1.
(TagsToTranslate)Football
