![]() He asks Hudson for a selfie - Hudson happily obliges - and then asks him the obvious question. He tells Hudson he’ll be in attendance tonight, having traveled to Fort Lauderdale from Los Angeles and having paid $1,000 for a seat behind the ad boards in the stadium. He chats with Hudson, offering him his compliments. Leo #Messi …the immaculate conception of a footballer….Īs Hudson prepares to leave the diner, a man sporting an Inter Miami jersey approaches the table. Later in the evening, I have to assume, the symphony of noise that succeeded Messi’s match-winner probably made its way over to Hudson. “I’ll have a good bottle of wine, just Joan and I and the cat. “You can hear the roar of the crowd from there,” says Hudson. Hudson himself will sit on his porch and see the din of the stadium lights on the horizon. As Hudson puts it, the “operatic high notes” of Messi’s MLS career will be called by someone else. Yet now, as this little seaside city prepares to welcome arguably the greatest player in the history of soccer, Hudson can’t bring himself to be in attendance. He fell in love with Fort Lauderdale, too, settling there permanently after he hung up his boots. In the ‘70s at Lockhart Stadium - which once sat on the earth where DRV PNK does today - he played alongside giants of the game like George Best and Gerd Muller, helping proselytize the game of soccer to unconverted Americans. Hudson is Florida soccer royalty, an important piece of Fort Lauderdale’s previous pro side, the NASL’s Strikers. The club, Hudson says, would be happy to have him at the stadium tonight, he just can’t bring himself to go. He served as the color commentary voice of Inter Miami’s local television broadcasts before MLS joined up with Apple TV, and Apple approached Hudson with an opportunity earlier this year, when they were putting together their broadcast talent. It’s not that Hudson feels left behind, he says. The way I’m feeling these days, it’s not something I’ve been able to explain to (my wife) Joan, to my friends, to anybody. And for him to come here, to our little gin joint, to play in that tiny little stadium, it is beyond belief. That connection is indelibly stamped between me and him. “I’m so closely associated with the memories that he’s given us all and how he’s made us feel. “There’s a strange sadness to it for me, I think,” says Hudson. There’s a touch of melancholy in his voice. The 68-year-old has rarely been at a loss for words, but as he stirs the coffee in front of him and begins to explain his absence, he struggles to do so. Hudson, who lives not far from DRV PNK Stadium, will not even be in attendance. Yet when viewers tune in to watch Messi’s debut tonight, Hudson’s voice won’t be anywhere to be found. And it has Lionel Messi to thank.įollow live coverage of Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami vs Atlanta United ![]() Tonight, for a second, at least, MLS finally lived up to its own hype. But what the league has lacked are genuine, real moments of insanity. MLS and its partners have done so much to manufacture hype for this game since the league has craved mainstream relevance over the years, which has proven elusive in a country dominated by other sports. ![]() Lionel Messi’s debut in an Inter Miami jersey is an unqualified success. “Esto es una fu-g pelicula!!! (“This is a f-ing movie!”) There are a few “influencers” mixed in with the photographers and cameramen behind the north ad boards, and one holds his phone aloft, in selfie mode, screaming in Spanglish. The look on Messi’s own face - a wide-eyed smile, his eyes full of amazement - seems to give the impression that even he couldn’t believe what he just did. Most fans are in hysterics, but a few are entirely silent, frozen in disbelief. The entire stadium erupts in a ground-shaking ovation as Messi streaks toward the corner flag, taking his teammates in his arms once he gets there. Cold, calculated, Messi steps over the ball and strikes it with his left instep, curling it past the outstretched fingertips of Cruz Azul’s goalie. debut, or Wayne Rooney and Luciano Acosta’s magical moment. What Lionel Messi does next will probably go down in American soccer history as one of the most memorable goals ever scored, alongside Zlatan’s Ibrahimovic’s 45-yard volley in his own U.S.
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