2023-06-16 08:04:12
Fans flocked to buy more than 60,000 tickets for Monday’s friendly between Indonesia and the World Cup champions Qatar, following the match was promoted with a poster that included a picture of Messi.
But following several days of speculation, fans in a football-mad country received bad news Thursday that Messi, who was crowned seven-time Ballon d’Or for the best player in the world, will not take part in the match.
“I feel sad, disappointed and with mixed feelings,” Surya Wijaya Ang, 31, a shopkeeper from the remote island of Banda Nera in East Maluku province, told AFP.
“This was the biggest opportunity for me to see Messi play closely,” he added.
The Argentine national team started its Asian tour by defeating Australia 2-0 in a friendly match in the Chinese capital, Beijing, where coach “Albi Celeste” Lionel Scaloni confirmed that Messi would not participate once morest Indonesia.
Ang, who became a big fan of Messi during his golden era with Barcelona, has collected a collection of regarding 200 shirts bearing the name of the little “flea”.
Ang plans to take a boat to the eastern Indonesian city of Ambon before taking a four-hour flight to Jakarta for the match. He sold seven shirts from his collection to pay for the 1.2 million rupees ($80) match ticket, an exorbitant price in the lower-middle-income country.
– ‘I’ll see Lionel Scaloni’ –
The Messi lover feels sad and says that the organizers have apparently promised the participation of the Argentine star, “Messi is a symbol, and you can say that 90 percent of the tickets were sold because of Messi.”
“This was a marketing strategy for them,” he added.
On the other hand, other Indonesians took to social media to express their disappointment, with one offering to sell two tickets “because Messi will not come.”
A video posted on Twitter also showed a fan singing and playing the guitar, “Why don’t you come to Indonesia? Why don’t you come, Mr. Messi?”, and another wrote, “This is the end of my admiration for him… We won’t beg him to come.”
Indonesian football has recently been experiencing several crises following a tragic accident in one of the stadiums, in addition to losing the rights to organize the World Cup under 20 years due to Israel’s refusal to participate.
Although his dream of seeing Messi was shattered, Ang confirmed that he would travel to the capital to watch the match. “I’ve come this far, so I’ll go,” he said. “Maybe I’ll see Lionel Scaloni,” he concluded with a laugh.
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