World Cup champions Argentina will switch their planned tour of China next month for exhibition matches in the United States, the Argentine Football Association said Thursday. The Albiceleste will play El Salvador in Philadelphia on March 22 and Nigeria four days later at Los Angeles’ Coliseum, the federation said. The games will replace friendlies in China that were canceled amid a backlash against Lionel Messi’s failure to play in an Inter Miami match against a local league XI in Hong Kong earlier this month. The 36-year-old Messi sparked anger in China and Hong Kong when he remained on the bench for the game against a team that included some local league players, even though he said he was suffering from a groin injury. He played for 30 minutes three days later in a match against Vissel Kobe in Tokyo.
The Chinese sporting authorities that oversee football have been in a tizzy since the incident. The city of Hangzhou and its sports bureau canceled the Argentina-Nigeria friendly on Friday after outrage over the alleged snub.
On Wednesday, a former editor-in-chief at the state-run Global Times newspaper called for a boycott of soccer matches and events in China involving international teams, including those of Argentina and Brazil. The comments by Hu Xijin were widely criticized on social media, with some netizens accusing him of promoting “political prejudice against Argentina and its football players.”
However, some fans in the Chinese city of Shanghai have embraced the idea of a boycott. A Facebook page that has more than 1 million likes calls for an end to what it describes as a “racist, discriminatory and inhumane attitude” toward the World Cup champions. The page’s founder, Jia Yongfei, is a former deputy mayor of the city’s central district.
The upcoming US friendlies will give Argentina the opportunity to warm up for the start of the Copa America in June, when the defending champions will play either Canada or Trinidad and Tobago in Atlanta on June 20, then Chile five days later at East Rutherford, New Jersey, and Peru at Miami Gardens, Florida.
Whether or not Messi is in the lineup for those two warm-up matches remains up in the air, but the move to the US appears to suit the Argentine captain. He does not have to travel as far as he would have if the matches had been held in China, which will reduce his playing load ahead of the tournament. The US matches also are earlier in the calendar, meaning that Messi’s injuries should be less of an issue. Whether that makes the US more attractive or not for the five-time Ballon d’Or winner will be up to him and his coach. For now, he is focused on his goal of winning a sixth consecutive La Liga title with Barcelona this season. The team is tied with Real Madrid and is in first place with nine games to go.
