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Messi, USMNT trio among stars playing in Miami World Soccer Masters friendly

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A collection of some of the U.S. national team's top talent and the world's greatest soccer players will be gathering in Miami in a month for one star-studded all-star friendly. 

Clint Dempsey, Carlos Bocanegra, Jozy Altidore, Lionel Messi and Didier Drogba lead a cast of 42 players who will participate in the World Soccer Masters exhibition match June 23 at Miami's Sun Life Stadium, according to a Fox press release. The match, which will be televised on Fox Soccer Channel, is slated for a 7 p.m. first kick and will conflict with a full slate of MLS matches that night.

Other players confirmed for the all-star match, according to Fox, include Liverpool's Luis Suarez, Inter Milan's Diego Forlan and Diego Milito, Barcelona's Javier Mascherano, Atletico Madrid's Radamel Falcao and veteran Italians Alessandro Nesta and Marco Materazzi. Fox and the World Soccer Masters have reached a multi-year agreement to put on the showcase, with this summer's match being the inaugural one.

What do you think of this development? Does this friendly immediately have your attention considering who is playing? Will you plan on attending the match? 

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. The best players in the world, World champions, Europe league champions, will be playing for the first time in miami and you prefer to watch MLS? are you for real?

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  2. Take caution. The Free Kick Masters that took place in Houston a few years back was billed as this must see showcase event of some of the worlds top players and it turned out to be a complete bust. Ronaldinho showed up to collect his paycheck and that was basically the extent of involvement. It’s the same company that’s running this event and if it’s anything like their previous event don’t expect to see Messi for anything more than a 15 minute trot.
    Also, is this the invited list, or the confirmed list? Because if you look at the invited list vs the list of those who actually showed up in 2008 it was quite different.

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  3. What is honest is this match will get the highlights and headlines before any of the MLS matches. You know it will. And YES I do support MLS as I can.

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  4. Messi alone is worth the price of admission. I don’t care if this is a friendly game, there will more skill shown on the field than in the entire MLS season.

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  5. The only thing comparable to the NFL’s Pro Bowl would be the halftime Lingerie Bowl’s played during the Super Bowl.

    This is coming from a huge football fan.

    The Pro Bowl is cringe worthy to watch. This will at least have some redeeming quality to watch. Even if Paul Scholes isn’t going studs up on a tackle in this glorified friendly.

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  6. Really strange to do this a week to two weeks after several of these players are done with Qualifying matches and also held during EURO 2012. If this were April 1st i would think this is an April fools joke!

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  7. -USMNT WCQ
    -UMSNT friendlies
    -MLS regular season
    -USOC
    -NCAA pre-season
    -European friendlies

    A list of things I put above this game in order. Peep those instead.

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  8. it’s basically going to be soccer’s version of the Pro Bowl in NFL. A lot of great players will get on the pitch and not give a crap about being competitive. It will be a ho-hum affair. I will be watching MLS.

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  9. They should appoint two captains, and have the captains pick the sides. That would be fun.

    Why in the world are the clubs letting their players do this?

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  10. interesting. i hope Drogba, Forlan, and Nesta enjoy the US and will convince them to sign with MLS. haha

    i’ll flip back and forth between this and the MLS games that are on.

    Reply

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