SAN SALVADOR-. The football team The Savior will face this Friday in an electrifying friendly match against Inter Miami of Lionel Messiwhich begins its preseason in a country unaccustomed to receiving stars of its caliber.
The match will take place at the Cuscatlán stadium in San Salvador and is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. local time (01:00 GMT on Saturday), under the arbitration of Salvadoran Iván Barton.
The Salvadoran squad knows how difficult the match will be, but it will be even more difficult to propose a good game plan to the Argentine star, which is why the team has continued training throughout the week.
Facing Messi is “complicated,” acknowledged the coach of El Salvador, the Spanish David Dóniga, who took the reins of the team at the beginning of February and with whom he hopes to win a victory for the American team.
For Dóniga, Messi cannot be played individually on the field, so it is necessary to look for a “collective” game scheme to stop his attack.
“It is difficult to find something that stops a player who is unrepeatable,” said Dóniga.
But on the field of play, El Salvador will not only face Messi, it is also expected that they will do so with other important players in Inter Miami such as Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba and the Uruguayan Luis Suárez who will make his debut with the team in this match, all of them former teammates at Barcelona.
The idol Messi
The match, whose tickets to the stadium are about to be sold out according to its promoters, has aroused the interest of many Salvadorans who talk about the match on social networks.
But on the street there is also talk about the game and what the final score would be.
Silverio Rivas, 55, is a fruit and vegetable street vendor who travels the streets of San Salvador in his small truck every day, and he is convinced that it will be Messi and company who will dominate the match.
“Let’s not fool ourselves here, Messi is going to score not one, but several goals, we have to get our act together, that guy is playing and if the ‘Selecta’ is careless we are going to be massacred. But it will be exciting to see Messi and Suárez play against the national team,” Rivas told AFP.
Due to the match, in some places in San Salvador the sale of Inter Miami shirts with Messi’s number 10 and also the Salvadoran national team is notorious.
Roxana Díaz, 27 years old, works as a secretary in a clinic in the capital, she is more than excited about the game, she is excited about the presence of the Argentine and Sergio Busquets, since they have been her idols since they were in Barcelona in Spain.
“I like football but not like going to the game, what excites me is that Messi and Busquets are coming, I have always admired them and I would like to meet them in person, it is a dream,” Díaz told AFP while waiting to board a bus.
The coach of Inter Miami, the Argentine Gerardo Martino, in a press conference on January 11 said about the game against El Salvador that what they are looking for is to start the preseason against a team “that is going to demand of us.”
After playing against El Salvador, Inter Miami will have a match against FC Dallas in Texas on January 22, and then will have other preseason matches.
Possible lineups:
El Salvador: Mario González – Bryan Tamacas, Rudy Clavel, Isaac Portillo, Diego Flores – Christian Martínez, Darwin Cerén, Amando Moreno, Eric Calvillo – Nelson Bonilla, Styven Vásquez.
DT: David Dóniga.
Inter Miami: Carlos Joaquim dos Santos – Jordi AlbaDeAndre Yedlin, Christopher McVey, Tomás Avilés – Sergio BusquetsBenjamin Cremaschi, Gregore Silva, Robert Taylor – Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez.
DT: Gerardo Martino.
FOUNTAIN: AFP
