How Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami fought to a 0-0 Club World Cup draw with Al Ahly

Funny things, opening ceremonies. We all like music and a dance, but generally not in service of whichever wooly buzzwords — Togetherness! Antiquity! — the relevant organisers have arbitrarily chosen for their sporting event.

If they disappeared altogether, you’d struggle to find anyone outside of Pitbull’s immediate family who would really miss them.

Some are better than others. Was this one of the good ones? It was not.

For a start, the whole thing was extremely sparsely populated, to the extent that it was tempting to think a busload or two of volunteers had got stuck in traffic en route to the stadium. Those clustered around the stage in the middle of the pitch gave it a good crack, gyrating manfully to nondescript, vaguely Latino-coded pop music, but the wide open spaces were impossible to ignore.

After the music came a promo video of remarkable subtlety and grace. Only kidding.

“A new era of football dawns,” it howled, declaring this the start of “another golden chapter in the history of our game”. Say what you want about FIFA president Gianni Infantino; the guy isn’t afraid of living up to his reputation.

There was still time for one more jarring scene. Instead of running out together — you know, as a team — the players were forced to walk down the tunnel one by one. This, presumably, was done just so the stadium announcer could shout Lionel Messi’s name before kick-off.

As a piece of reverse-engineering, it was actually quite impressive. As a spectacle? Let’s just say the faces of the bemused Al-Ahly players told their own story.

GO FURTHER

Al Ahly 0, Inter Miami 0 – Messi comes close as 60,000 take in lively Club World Cup opener