FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Lionel Messi’s next match with Inter Miami will be against a team on the rise from Jamaica.
Inter Miami and its collection of former FC Barcelona stars will host Jamaican Premier League champion Cavalier FC at Chase Stadium on Thursday night at 8 p.m. ET. It’ll be the first of two matches in the round of 16 of the Concacaf Champions Cup tournament.
The match is among the most significant matches any soccer team from Jamaica or the Caribbean has played because of Messi. The World Cup champion’s presence alone makes this feel like a David vs. Goliath matchup.
‘That’s actually my favorite Bible story,” Cavalier FC coach and sporting director Rudolph Speid said during a news conference Wednesday.
Speid was in a lighthearted – or an irie mood – before the matchup.
Asked about how Messi could perform after resting and not playing Inter Miami’s last match Sunday in Houston, the coach said with a smile: “I know he rested because he wanted to be his best to play us.”
How to watch Inter Miami vs. Cavalier FC match on TV?
The match will be available on FS2 in English and ViX in Spanish.
Is Messi playing against Cavalier FC?
Inter Miami said Messi is expected to play when they announced he did not travel for the 4-1 win against the Houston Dynamo. But coach Javier Mascherano was coy about Messi’s status for the match.
“He’s training. He trained (Tuesday). He trained (Wednesday). But we’ll see,” Mascherano said. “He’s in good health, but we’ll see what’s best for us. That’s the reality.”
Cavalier FC excited about opportunity to play Inter Miami
Cavalier FC is playing in the Champions Cup tournament for the second time in as many years. They qualified directly into the round of 16 by winning the Concacaf Caribbean Cup in December.
As they watched Inter Miami dispatch Sporting Kansas City in the first round last month, Speid said the team wanted face Inter Miami all along. He personally attended Inter Miami’s home match against Sporting KC Feb. 25, when Messi scored a goal in a 3-1 win and Inter Miami advanced 4-1 on aggregate score.
‘Oh, we were cheering for them. We wanted Inter Miami to come through so we could play them,” Speid said. “All the persons in Jamaica were telling us, ‘Let’s hope it’s Inter Miami.’”
The matchup against Inter Miami will be the second time Cavalier has faced MLS competition: They lost to FC Cincinnati by scores of 2-0 and 4-0 in the first round of the tournament last year.
Inter Miami’s Sergio Busquets – one of five former Barcelona standouts on the squad, including Messi, Luis Suarez, Jordi Alba and Mascherano – said Cavalier ‘may not be so well known to us, but we know that if they are in this competition, it is on their own merits.’
‘They will be eager to face us and make it difficult for us,” Busquets added.
Cavalier knows it needs to make some noise in Thursday’s match, because they want Messi to play in the second leg March 13 at National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica. They have already announced a sellout of 35,000 tickets for the match.
“We have to take something home, especially to force Leo to come home and for Jamaicans to see him,” Cavalier FC defender Jeovanni Laing, 23, said.
Added Speid: “We’re really looking forward to doing well. I think it will inspire a generation of players in Jamaica itself, just because of what will happen. We’ll play them here. Everybody will be watching on TV. And, also in the return leg where we expect a packed stadium, and everybody just talking about the game. That inspiration is much more for the country than just our team.”
Cavalier is the reigning Jamaican Premier League champion. They’ve won the league twice in the last four years thanks to a focus on cultivating young players across the country capable of playing on Jamaica’s youth national teams, Speid said.
‘We have two 16-year-olds, two 17-year-olds, two 18-year-olds, one 19-year-old, five 20-year-olds,” Speid said. ‘They are really talented players. They just need an opportunity.”
Speid believes five years from now, the players on his team will be among the best in the country.
On Thursday, they could face the best player in the world.
‘This is like a dream come true for us as players, Jamaica as a country and as a whole for the Caribbean. But we can’t get starstruck,” Laing said of facing Messi and Inter Miami. “We have to play and perform well.
‘This is an opportunity to show our talents on the bigger stage, because millions will be watching. It’s a good thing. It’s a good opportunity.”