Messi in Beijing for friendly before move to Miami
The HinduArgentine superstar Lionel Messi arrived in Beijing on Saturday for a friendly match before leaving a storied European career to join Major League Soccer side Inter Miami as a free agent. His arrival was announced in a post on the organiser International Football Invitation’s official Weibo social media site with a video of players stepping off a plane, ahead of Thursday’s Argentina-Australia match in the Chinese capital’s recently rebuilt Workers’ Stadium. Messi, who lifted the World Cup in Qatar in December and is widely considered to be one of the game’s all-time greats, confirmed this week he will leave French champion Paris Saint Germain for the US league. He has received a fervent welcome on each of his previous visits to China, which has a huge soccer fan base despite the struggles of the men’s national team, which has played at the World Cup only once.