{"id":56358,"date":"2024-02-04T23:24:07","date_gmt":"2024-02-04T23:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/messi-beckham-booed-after-star-sits-out-hong-kong-friendly-the-express-tribune\/"},"modified":"2024-02-04T23:24:07","modified_gmt":"2024-02-04T23:24:07","slug":"messi-beckham-booed-after-star-sits-out-hong-kong-friendly-the-express-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/messi-beckham-booed-after-star-sits-out-hong-kong-friendly-the-express-tribune\/","title":{"rendered":"Messi, Beckham booed after star sits out Hong Kong friendly | The Express Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\nHONG KONG:
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lionel Messi and Inter-Miami co-owner David Beckham were booed on Sunday and angry fans demanded refunds after the Argentina superstar sat out the team’s pre-season friendly in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

The city government said organisers owed fans an explanation after the match, in which the visitors beat a Hong Kong select XI by four goals to one.<\/p>\n

The World Cup-winning captain, who has a hamstring strain, stayed rooted to the bench throughout.<\/p>\n

That brought a show of anger from the near-capacity crowd of 38,323, who had paid upwards of 1,000 Hong Kong dollars ($125) to see their hero, and in many cases five times that amount.<\/p>\n

Halfway through the second half, chants of “We want Messi<\/a>” rose around the Hong Kong Stadium from fans desperate to see the greatest footballer of his generation in the much-hyped exhibition game.<\/p>\n

The booing became louder during the last 10 minutes when it became clear that the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner would not make even the briefest of cameos.<\/p>\n

The jeers rose to a crescendo at the final whistle, and Beckham was drowned out by booing as he tried to thank the crowd for “their incredible support” while fans signalled their anger with thumbs-down gestures.<\/p>\n

“I’m just really disappointed,” fan Jonathan Wong told AFP. “Everyone is here to see Messi, so I feel a bit cheated.<\/p>\n

“Without him it’s just like another regular Hong Kong Premier League match, where a ticket only costs HK$80. This time we paid HK$5,000.”<\/p>\n

Miami coach Gerardo Martino said the club’s medical team had taken the decision after an assessment on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

“We understand the disappointment of the fans for the absence of Leo (Messi),” Martino told reporters.<\/p>\n

“We understand a lot of fans are very disappointed and we ask for their forgiveness.<\/p>\n

“We wish we could have sent Leo on for at least a while but the risk was too big.”<\/p>\n

The 36-year-old Messi played just six minutes in Miami’s last match, in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, and now faces a race against time to be fit for the new MLS season that starts on February 21.<\/p>\n

It was a bitter end to days of Hong Kong “Messi mania”.<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands turned up just to watch him train on Saturday, when he did little more than jog and stretch.<\/p>\n

The team hotel was besieged by hundreds of fans trying to glimpse their hero, and a traditional junk boat was cruising around Victoria harbour with Messi’s face plastered across its sails.<\/p>\n

Messi shirts had been flying off the shelves after tickets for the match sold out in an hour when they went on sale in December.<\/p>\n

Echoing the fans’ anger, the Hong Kong government said it could withdraw 16 million Hong Kong dollars ($2 million) of funding to the organisers that helped bring Inter Miami to the city.<\/p>\n

“The organiser owes all football fans an explanation,” it said.<\/p>\n

In a statement, organisers of the event — dubbed “Tatler XFEST” — expressed their “extreme disappointment” that neither Messi nor his Uruguayan teammate Luis Suarez took part in the match.<\/p>\n

“Despite some news reports, Tatler did not have any information about the non-participation of Messi or Suarez prior to kick off,” they said.<\/p>\n

As well lacking as the illustrious South American duo, Miami’s starting line-up featured neither of their other former Barcelona stars, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba.<\/p>\n

Robert Taylor opened the scoring for the MLS side in the 40th minute with a delightful right-foot curling shot from the left-hand edge of the box.<\/p>\n

Two minutes later Hong Kong’s Henri Anier laced a left-foot finish home to make it 1-1.<\/p>\n

Miami regained the advantage after half-time when Lawson Sunderland found the target from close range, and Leonardo Campana increased the lead in the 56th minute.<\/p>\n

Busquets and Alba finally made an appearance from the bench after 62 minutes to a smattering of cheers.<\/p>\n

Ryan Sailor rounded off the scoring for Miami in the 85th minute with a glancing header.<\/p>\n

It was Miami’s first win in five matches on their globe-trotting pre-season tour, which heads to Japan for a friendly against Vissel Kobe on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HONG KONG: Lionel Messi and Inter-Miami co-owner David Beckham were booed on Sunday and angry fans demanded refunds after the Argentina superstar sat out the team’s pre-season friendly in Hong Kong. The city government said organisers owed fans an explanation after the match, in which the visitors beat a Hong Kong select XI by four […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.tribune.com.pk\/media\/images\/cropped_GettyImages-19768965681707082710-0\/cropped_GettyImages-19768965681707082710-0.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}