The world’s most famous athlete is about to see North America’s largest outdoor bar.
Lionel Messi, the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner as the world’s top soccer player, is in San Jose where his Inter Miami CF is set to play the Earthquakes at PayPal Park on Wednesday (7:30 p.m., Apple TV+).
Inter is coming off a 4-1 loss in Minnesota on Saturday, as Messi scored the team’s only goal. Miami is now 1-4 in its last five games overall, including crashing out of the CONCACAF Champions Cup by losing both semifinal legs to Vancouver. All five of those matches have come since April 24, putting heavy miles on players’ legs.
Messi started four of those five matches, playing all 90 minutes each time. So, can soccer fans in the Bay expect the 37-year-old global superstar to play here on short rest?
Embattled Miami coach Javier Mascherano, Messi’s former teammate with FC Barcelona and the Argentina national team, gave no indication in a Monday press conference that Messi would miss Wednesday’s game. The superstar also trained with teammates on the Quakes’ practice field at PayPal Park on Monday afternoon.
Messi has missed some road games since arriving in Miami in 2023 to manage his minutes load, including one earlier this season in Houston. Those absences from road games have drawn lawsuits and refunds in the past, but they have also usually included him not traveling with the team at all. He played in Minnesota and was swarmed by fans Sunday outside Inter’s team hotel in San Jose.
As for star striker Luis Suarez, who missed the Minnesota game for personal reasons, Mascherano said he will remain out of the squad for Wednesday’s game as he ramps back up to fitness.
Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi, center, practices at the San Jose Earthquakes’ training field on Monday, May 12, 2025, in San Jose, Calif., ahead of Wednesday’s match. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
The Quakes, for their part, are on a three-match winning streak in all competitions, including a 2-0 win in Colorado on Saturday.
Apologies to Steph Curry and LeBron James, but Messi is the biggest global name to play in the Bay Area in more than a decade. Cristiano Ronaldo, a five-time Ballon winner who was then with Real Madrid, played a friendly against Club America at Candlestick Park in 2010. Messi also visited the old stadium, a year earlier with FC Barcelona in a friendly against Chivas de Guadalajara.
But this marks the first time Messi, who has won a record 46 trophies with club and country, will play a competitive match here.
So, for the uninitiated, what makes the Little Genius so electrifying?
Chris Wondolowski, Major League Soccer’s all-time leading scorer and now head of the Earthquakes’ under-23 development program, went on KNBR 680-AM on Monday to explain Messi’s revolutionary impact on soccer.
“When he has the ball or even when he doesn’t, you just watch him. He’s electric,” Wondolowski said. “You feel a buzz every time he has it. You feel something amazing is going to happen and usually it does.”
Now in his third season since arriving in Miami on a deal funded in part by Apple TV’s global rights to show MLS matches, Messi does a lot less running than he did in Barcelona. Yet he still controls the game, usually from the right flank of the offense, threatening to send a pass nobody else saw coming or unleash his otherworldly dribbling skills on a defender who idolized him as a child.
Messi is in the 99th percentile in goals (excluding penalties) and progressive passes per 90 minutes among both attacking midfielders and forwards globally, according to FBref.com. Translation: He is still both the best scorer and the best passer in the world.
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Experiencing Messi’s aura in person — as hordes did outside Inter’s hotel on Sunday — is worth a pretty penny. As of midday Monday, the cheapest ticket to get into the match was $305 for a spot on the Quakes’ north supporters terrace.
But telling the story of how you saw the biggest star to play a competitive game in the Bay Area since Pele’s New York Cosmos played the Quakes in the 1970s? Priceless.
If we’re lucky, this won’t be the last time Messi plays in NorCal. While Inter does not come to the Bay each season (and it’s not guaranteed he’ll stay with Miami next year), Levi’s Stadium will host six World Cup matches next year. The last time Messi played in a World Cup, he led Argentina to gold in an epic final win over France in Qatar.
Argentina’s Lionel Messi celebrates with the trophy in front of the fans after winning the World Cup final soccer match between Argentina and France at the Lusail Stadium in Lusail, Qatar, Sunday, Dec. 18, 2022. Argentina won 4-2 in a penalty shootout after the match ended tied 3-3. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)