Inter Miami is turning into Barca Old Boys with Messi, Busquets and Alba

• First Lionel Messi, then Sergio Busquets and now Jordi Alba is set for Inter Miami 
• The star trio enjoyed success with Barcelona and are reuniting before they retire
• DailyMail.com provides all the latest international sports news 

They have stood shoulder to shoulder wearing the same colors for most of their careers: Jordi Alba, Sergio Busquets and Lionel Messi grew up together; they won things together; and they were even blamed together for Barcelona’s catastrophic financial situation.

Now they are going to roller skate down Ocean Drive together, into the sunset of their careers – three amigos who won more between them than most clubs have managed in their history reunited before they retire.

Reporters used to ask Messi if he was going to finish his career back at his first ever club, Newell’s Old Boys. Instead it turns out it will be for Barca Old Boys with Alba and Busquets in the colors of Inter Miami.

Messi’s connection with Busquets began in 2005 when he arrived at La Masia and played so well in Pep Guardiola Barca B team that he went straight into the senior side. ‘This one is good’ Messi had said to Guardiola when he first clocked eyes on ‘Busi’ in training. ‘Well you will see him in action soon enough,’ replied Guardiola.

The Messi-Alba marriage did not start until 2012 when he signed for Barcelona from Valencia having just played a huge part in Spain winning the 2012 Euros.

Barcelona up until that point had played with a very attacking right-back in Dani Alves, and a more defensively inclined left back in Eric Abidal.

Alves and Messi had formed a magic triangle with Xavi down the right but it would not be long before the Argentine did the same down the left with Alba and Andres Iniesta.

As Alves’ form waned Alba grew in importance and his understanding with Messi never failed to mesmerize defenses.

The two didn’t even have to look at each other most of the time – they already knew from a thousand training ground drills exactly when and where the other would deliver the ball. Spectacular wall passes over great distances became their trademark – usually Messi out to Alba and Alba back to Messi who would score.

When they won the Treble together under Luis Enrique in 2015 Alba had been given a tough brief by the then-Barca coach.

Because the team boasted a front three of Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez, Alba had to be more restrained with his forward forays. He did it without complaining and the side won the lot that season beating Juventus in the Champions League final in Berlin.

The following year Alves left the club and in 2017 Neymar was gone too. The emphasis was back on attacking full-backs and Alba was tormentor in chief down the left, marauding forward at will to be Messi’s accomplice high up the pitch.

There is no question that Alba still has the engine to get up and down the touchline as he has done over the years and now he has his telepathic teammate with him once more.

Busquets, the third of the famous three, also has an inbuilt precision accuracy when it comes to finding the other two. It’s impossible to overstate how much Inter Miami will gain from signing all three of them.

A combined best Barcelona XI from the last decade would read: Valdes, Alves, Pique, Puyol, Alba, Xavi, Busquets, Iniesta, Messi, Suarez, Neymar – more than a quarter of that illustrious team is set to be playing for David Beckham’s club.

The bond between them is solid – it’s no secret that Busquets and Messi made a pact to play together again. Alba’s future seemed less sure last month but the preference is always to join his pals in the US.

Mail Sport was with him on the momentous day Messi to Miami broke on social media. He hurriedly checked his phone and told us that he still had not had it confirmed – both Busquets and Alba had been regular fixtures at the dinners organized by Messi when he came back to stay in Barcelona.

There are so many things that link the three of them – Busquets and Alba share Spain silverware as well as Barcelona honors. 

But they grew even closer together when they became scapegoats because of the idea that they had driven Barcelona to the point of near bankruptcy with their high wages, and refusal to take salary cuts.

‘Not everyone can like you but there have been so many lies’, Alba told Mail Sport in the interview he gave us the day Messi’s Miami move was made public.

Referring to himself, Busquets and Alba, Gerard Pique said last month: ‘I wonder who needs to leave now? They said that we were to blame because of our salaries. Now, we’ve all left and yet they still can’t sign players.’

Alba was jeered at the start of the 2021-22 season just after Messi left. Again there had been whispering campaign that his refusal to drop his wages had, in part, led to Messi being sold to PSG.

Messi had previously been accused of crippling the club financially – as if one of, if not, greatest player in history should not have been the world’s top earner.

Busquets escaped the more vocal criticism but there were still headlines bemoaning the fact that his wages had been so high. 

‘The captains of Barcelona refuse to drop their salaries’ was a headline in Diario Sport in June last year – the captains being Alba, Busquets and Pique.

Alba was left out of the team for long chunks of last season with the club making it clear to him that he had to leave this summer because they simply could not afford to pay him the 30million euros they owed him in what would have been the final year of his contract – an accumulation of wages and back pay frozen during the pandemic.

When he left last month he waived a sizeable proportion of that sum and a tearful club president Joan Laporta thanked him for the gesture.

‘In the end all the truth came out and the president – who is the man in charge, and who has all accounts to hand – said they were grateful for everything I did,’ Alba told Mail Sport.

The three Barca legends will be coached by Tata Martino who managed them in them in 2013-14 season, adding to the Barcelona connection.

Could any more former Barcelona faces join the Barca Old Boys group now in Miami? Pique said only last week in an interview in Spain that he does not miss soccer, and his retirement does seem permanent.

Luis Suarez has an even tighter friendship with Messi than Alba and Busquets and the former would be delighted to welcome the latter.

But it might have to be in 2024 when Suarez’s contract runs out at Gremio and even then it would be pending the Uruguayan’s fitness. 

He has played through the pain barrier for most of his career and while not slowing down his prolific goalscoring form in Porto Alegre his right knee has been flagged as an issue for his coach Renato Gaucho.

For the moment, it looks like being just three: but what a trio. 

Messi, Busquets, and Alba – each in his own position recognized as ‘the greatest’ in Barcelona’s history, and ready to join forces once more for Inter Miami.