Barcelona to play regular-season La Liga match in Miami | ESPN FC

Share it with your friends Like

Thanks! Share it with your friends!

Close

With the news coming out that Barcelona is set to play a regular-season La Liga match vs. Girona at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Adrian Healey, Shaka Hislop, Craig Burley, Gab Marcotti and Raphael Honigstein of ESPN FC react to the news, debating whether seeing Lionel Messi in the United States is a good thing or a bad thing for the Spanish league.

✔ Subscribe to ESPN on YouTube: http://es.pn/SUBSCRIBEtoYOUTUBE
✔ Subscribe to ESPN FC on YouTube: http://bit.ly/SUBSCRIBEtoESPNFC
✔ Subscribe to NBA on ESPN on YouTube: http://bit.ly/SUBSCRIBEtoNBAonESPN
✔ Watch ESPN on YouTube TV: http://es.pn/YouTubeTV

ESPN on Social Media:
► Follow on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/espn
► Like on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/espn
► Follow on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/espn

Visit ESPN on YouTube to get up-to-the-minute sports news coverage, scores, highlights and commentary for NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA, College Football, NCAA Basketball, soccer and more.

More on ESPN.com: http://www.espn.com

Comments

Link On says:

This is the worst thing for us soccer

Aragorn Rey de Gondor says:

NO FUCKING WAY

Rogarcai says:

Football is about so much more than winning championships. It means so much more to the supporters of a club, it represents a community, an ideology, or a principle. Take FC Barcelona (even though I feel they've been moving away from it in the past few years) who over the Franco regime, going to a game in the Camp Nou was the only place for them to speak their language.

Furthermore, the chief executives in la liga have shown to not give a flying fuck about supporters there in general; putting games at odd hours like 12:30 or 22:30 on a sunday to appeal to Chinese or American markets. Making the commune difficult. Also fining clubs for failing to fill a portion of the stadium and of course not properly distributing TV rights. I could keep going but apparently they don't seem to get that if you improve your weakest link then it makes the whole product better.

And it's that parity that the Premier League understood a while ago and as a result, la liga has been struggling to "get a piece of the pie" as it were. Right now it's trying that asinine idea of bringing a game abroad. And for those of you saying "it's only one game," in NFL and NBA there is no relegation nor promotion, so that's not an issue for a mediocre team to lose one of their home games abroad. Imagine a club like Girona, or better yet Huddersfield Town, when last year they finished literally 4 points ahead of relegation. They got a crucial win when nobody expected them to against Manchester United at home. If they give up their home game against a big club, they are effectively giving up an opportunity to stave off relegation and not lose dozens of millions by staying up. Playing at home gives players a huge boost (see Crystal Palace, Athletic Club Bilbao, Borussia Dortmund, Anfield, etc.) and can definitely turn the tide in some games. If you take that away then you are effectively putting yourself in a worse position when it comes time to compete.

Harsh Sarpal says:

Brutally unfair for girona fans

FFF says:

Let’s take this cunts Old firm derby to Miami and see how he likes it?

Gabriel Edward says:

This is bullshit, Americans don’t care about football, I know Hispanics love football and they will probably fill the stands, but this is a Spanish competition, and for this reason it has to be played in Spain. And we all know that the Spanish FA wants to make a political affair about it, they are prohibiting the Catalan flags in a Catalan derby ? That smells like shit, fuck this bullshit

barneyoncrakk01 says:

Think this expansion should’ve been between England and the US. With the NFL having games in England, I think it’d make sense to get a game or two from the premier league in the States.

Darrell Bell says:

This is ridiculous

LoL LOL says:

I hope Barcelona will stand up with a B team

alrules007 says:

So the NFL plays games abroad, although there are only 16 games per season, and BBVA doesn’t want to, although they play more games? ?? seems odd to me

Lyla says:

With midweek cupgames, January is an insanely tiring month for the players and two 8 hour flights and jetlag is going to make it even worse. It's a disadvantage that other teams don't have.
If the fixture was decided by a draw or something, it would be kind of alright, but the fact that this is a Catalan derby makes it blatant favoritism towards Madrid.
I suspect they will also make it about politics by playing the Spanish national anthem before the game, giving away Spanish flags and not allowing the Senyera.

Mubbashir Hussain says:

They let big star's to walk away for money issues,and now they go abroad to promote la liga.

Andres Sifontes says:

unpopular opinion I like the idea of having teams coming to America

Fermín Canas says:

I rather watch Inter Miami than shit Messi

Lawrence R says:

This is ridiculous.. not needed usa fans all ready love European football.. look at those useless icc matches..

Reem Kabeel says:

Okay but Girona fans deserve to see this game in their home stadium, doesn't matter if 'no one cares it's Girona'. Last year barca found it hard to break thro when they played there. Such an ignorant response.

Aarav Ninja says:

Fuck u laliga this is bullshit learn from prem league.

VESANG says:

Its more nonsense after nonsense … NWO at play . Wake up people ! Money are going to kill everything decent in humanity .

Jack Colman says:

I hate how America gets all the privileges???

Reply to FFF Cancel reply

*