The party starts again as Messi returns home to Inter Miami

FORT LAUDERDALE — The craziest part still to fathom, even after a season of it, as Inter Miami returns to view?

It’s the gap between them and him.

Between their world and his world.

Between where they can go and where he can take them.

“It was a trip I couldn’t have gone on except on this team,’’ Inter Miami forward Robert Taylor was saying Wednesday about the recently completed four-continent, five-exhibition junket where they proselytized in pink.

Or he proselytized to the soccer world, really. Messi.

Taylor grew up in Finland and, at 29, was trending to a good, if unremarkable, career until he landed at Inter Miami last season just before Messi signed. Now he plays alongside him. So much changed for him and his teammates.

Now they’re on the doorstep of the next Major League Soccer season with a simple friendly Thursday night in Fort Lauderdale against a small opponent. Except there’s nothing simple or small when Messi is involved, as he obviously is in this exhibition against his boyhood team from Rosario, Argentina.

He’s the reason this game happened. He’s why the Argentine media descended for this final tune-up to Inter Miami’s season opener next week. Just the comment that he’ll play Thursday night became an international headline.

Several dozen fans waited to get a drive-by glimpse of him leaving the team’s Fort Lauderdale facility, pleading with outstretched paraphernalia to sign, “Leo! Leo!”

The coach of the Newell’s Old Boys, Mauricio Larriera, said his team’s fans, “will want Newell’s to win and Messi to be the best player.”

The pregame news conference involved questions like: “I was just talking to a used car salesman from China who follows Messi around the world and …”

Messi, being Messi, wasn’t on hand to talk so Taylor did by proxy.

“You don’t get used to that, people traveling all over the world to watch,’’ Taylor said.

The soccer world doesn’t need Messi to talk in subtitles to his game. His public words are as rare and bland as the two he uttered (“Michelob Ultra”) in a Super Bowl commercial with Dan Marino and Jason Sudeikis.

So, what does he have to do this second year at Inter Miami — besides just show up to play?

That’s not a joke, either. Not at all. Inter Miami’s round-the-world trip showed as much when Messi sat out a game in Hong Kong. More than 40,000 people watched Inter Miami do a simple workout the day before.

But team co-owner David Beckham was booed while he tried to explain to Messi’s small injury to the crowd. Promoters returned half the $7.5 million gate to ticket holders. The Chinese state-run newspaper wrote an editorial questioning the, “integrity of Inter Miami and Messi himself,” when he played 30 minutes in Tokyo later that week and two games involving the Argentine national team in China were canceled.

That’s the price tag of Messi-sized fame.

“Leo had an inflamed adductor from the first game in Saudi Arabia, but it was not a serious injury, so we went day to day,’’ Inter Miami coach Tata Martinez said. “That is why he played 10 minutes in the second game. That’s why he did not play in Hong Kong.

“That’s why he played a little more in the game in Japan. (Thursday) he will likely play more minutes and if all goes at this rate, he will arrive in good form for the season opener.”

That opener next week against Real Salt Lake in Fort Lauderdale is the debut of the Four Amigos. Messi, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba and newly signed Luis Suarez once formed the heart of a powerhouse Barcelona team. Can they run the table on the MLS deep into their 30s?

“All our opponents will probably have added incentive because of the players we have,’’ Martino said. “But we also have high expectations because of the team we can put out there against every opponent.”

First, there’s this exhibition. It isn’t just Messi who first played there. Martino did, too.

“I never could have imagined as a young player with Newell’s that one day I would be here coaching this game,’’ he said.

The coach, too, is here because Messi wanted him here. It’s so many players who are just part of the ride. On Tuesday, dozens of fans stood waiting for Messi to drive by as Taylor walked by them after his news conference back to the facilities.