Lionel Messi, Inter Miami’s star man on their South American tour | OneFootball

After winning the MLS championship, the star will kick off the World Cup year with a series of preseason matches, the first of which have been confirmed in Colombia and Ecuador.

Lionel Messi will lead Inter Miami’s roster in a friendly against Atlético Nacional to be played on Saturday, January 31, 2026, at the Atanasio Girardot Stadium in Medellín, and another against Barcelona at the Banco Pichincha Stadium in Guayaquil on February 7, the organizers of the matches announced this Wednesday. These are the first confirmed dates for the brand-new Major League Soccer champion’s preseason tour of South America, which in addition to stops in Colombia and Ecuador, will include matches in Peru.

Alongside the star will be Rodrigo De Paul, another player counting down to the Mexico-United States-Canada World Cup. With these away games, the American club aims to warm up for a year full of football and spectacular events, bringing its stars closer to fans across the continent.

“Facing Inter Miami and welcoming to our home players who have made history in world football is an opportunity to show, once again, that Atlético Nacional is a club of international stature,” said the president of the Colombian team, Sebastián Arango, as quoted in a statement from the organizers.

Messi has visited Colombia several times as a player for the Argentine national team in South American qualifiers. However, the star player’s history in the coffee country began in 2005, when he competed in the South American U-20 Championship as one of the tournament’s best players. He scored six goals with his team and was the second top scorer behind Colombian Hugo Rodallega, who scored 11 times. On that occasion, Colombia were champions, Brazil were runners-up, and Argentina finished third.

Meanwhile, Daniel Molina, the main facilitator of the agreement between the American club and Barcelona, told reporters that “this might be the last time you see Messi playing in Ecuador as a world champion.” Molina added that they wanted a stadium as large as Banco Pichincha “to accommodate as many people as possible from all over the country, because they’ll be coming from everywhere.”

The promoter assured that the decision of Javier Mascherano “played an important role” in the team’s choice to play in Guayaquil. Molina recalled that the coach “experienced a special atmosphere in that stadium” when he participated as a guest in the 2021 Noche Amarilla, Barcelona’s squad presentation for that season.

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