Messi is back at Inter Miami, and his last word to Argentina was "Gracias"

Lionel Messi trained with Inter Miami on Thursday, two days after his last Argentina match and two days before Inter Miami's next one. The club hosts D.C. United at Nu Stadium on Saturday, which is Sunday 11 October at 07:30 Shanghai time. 1

Messi arrived at the training ground smiling and worked with the group. Rodrigo De Paul, who had been at the farewell in Buenos Aires as his Inter Miami teammate and friend, trained alongside him. Inter Miami's own account posted a picture of the session with the line "All eyes on Saturday". 12

He returns to a club that needs him. Inter Miami are third in the Eastern Conference on 46 points from 27 matches and have not won in five league games, a run of four draws and one defeat. Since the start of August the team has won once in ten. 3

Messi's own season points the other way. He has 21 goals and 13 assists, the best combined total in the league at 34, and he is chasing a third straight MVP award. Cristian "Kily" González took over as manager during the winless run, and Messi plays in front of Luis Suárez, Casemiro and De Paul. 34

D.C. United sit 11th on 30 points from 26 matches, three points behind ninth place and with a game in hand. Their Saturday night in Miami is a wild-card chase as much as a fixture. 3

Messi posted again on Thursday, and this time the picture carried the message. It is a studio shot: he stands with his back to the camera, both arms raised, holding the Argentina No. 10 shirt above his head so that it hides his face. On the back, where his surname has always been printed, the shirt carries one word in gold lettering: GRACIAS. 5

The caption ran in Spanish and English and stayed to three sentences: "It has all been said. And now it has all been done. And the only words that come from my heart are: thank you, Argentina." 5

Within hours the post had drawn 6.7 million likes and more than 133,000 comments. 5

Lionel Scaloni has moved from open questions about his future to a renewal that Argentine reporters now expect to be completed. 442 reported on Thursday that Scaloni will sign again, with the announcement expected before Argentina's next FIFA window in November. His current contract runs to 31 December. 6

Scaloni's own tone softened across the window. After July's World Cup final he said he would probably stop when his deal ended; before the Bolivia match he said the desire to continue was there and only an agreement was missing; after the farewell, with Messi gone, he said: "If all goes well, I will still be the coach." Asked formally about the renewal, he answered that there was no news. 6

The open question now sits with his staff. Walter Samuel is weighing whether to leave in December and start out on his own, and Scaloni will try to persuade him to stay. 78

442's reading of the window puts Nico Paz as its standout, with Lautaro Martínez and Julián Álvarez now the pair up front and Thiago Almada absent. 6

Gernot Rohr, the Benin coach, left Buenos Aires pleased with the match and unhappy with everything around it. "The only black mark is that the Argentines gave us nothing," he told the French radio station RMC. "Not a photo with Messi, not a shirt. They would not even let us into the tunnel." Some of his players had brought shirts to swap. "We tried everything, but it was useless." 9

Rohr did leave with an autograph. He had kept a Messi shirt from 2018, when he coached Nigeria against Argentina at the World Cup, and Scaloni carried it into the Argentina dressing room to be signed. "I waited half an hour, but it was worth it," Rohr said. 9

The gifts had gone the other way before kick-off. Benin's captain, Sessi D'Almeida, gave Messi a statuette of the Dahomey Amazons, a rose and a letter written by hand by the whole squad. Rohr's verdict on the night itself stayed warm: "We are very happy to be part of this history, especially for a legend of football like Lionel Messi." 9