BOSTON \u2014 A friend texted the other day to say he took his son to Gillette Stadium Wednesday night to watch the New England Revolution host Inter Miami and its galactic superstar footballer from Argentina, Lionel Messi. \u201cAnd the stadium was 75% for Messi,\u201d my friend wrote. \u201cMany thousands (including my kid) wearing his shirt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Considering the attendance was 43,293 for the Revolution\u2019s 2-1 loss, that\u2019s a lot of Inter Miami shirts. I reached out to some other friends who also happen to be sturdy, longtime Revolution fans. \u201cYeah, I was there,\u201d one of them shot right back. \u201cI\u2019d say less than 75 percent but definitely a lot.\u201d Another old pal, also in the house that night, wrote this: \u201c75% is accurate. There were loads of Messi\/Inter Miami jerseys.\u201d<\/p>\n
For most of you, perhaps all of you, this is not news. When Messi-led Inter Miami played the Revolution at Gillette in 2024, a franchise record 65,612 fans turned out. And anyway, it\u2019s a long-standing tradition in the United States for fans to bestow Beatles-like devotion on visiting soccer superstars. Whether the match is a league competition or a friendly, fans love the legends \u2014 and Messi, who scored both Inter Miami goals, didn\u2019t disappoint.<\/p>\n
\ud83d\udea8 Watch: Lionel Messi gets a standing ovation from the crowd after yet another magical performance. \ud83d\udc10\ud83e\udd29\ud83d\udc4f@M10GOAT<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/ODbCqzTEgi<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Inter Miami News Hub (@Intermiamicfhub) July 10, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n This isn\u2019t some newfangled, cool-kids, TikTokian thing. As far back as July 8, 1968, a crowd of 18,431 turned out at Fenway Park to watch \u2014 and cheer \u2014 as Brazilian soccer legend Pel\u00e9 led Santos FC to a 7-1 victory over the \u201chome team,\u201d the one-season-and-done Boston Beacons of the North American Soccer League.\u00a0 It was instantly proclaimed the largest crowd ever to watch a soccer game in New England.<\/p>\n Why do soccer fans go ga-ga over out-of-town players in a way you\u2019d never see in baseball, football, hockey or basketball? The answers are easy. Too easy, in fact. Yes, a big part of it is national pride. Pel\u00e9 is from Brazil, Messi from Argentina. As New England has the second-largest Brazilian community of any state in the country, that\u2019s a built-in fan base to watch not just Pel\u00e9 but other South American stars as well. Including Messi, of course.<\/p>\n Part of it, I guess, is a bucket list thing. Surely, there are people who filed into Fenway Park on that July evening in 1968 so they could say they saw Pel\u00e9 play. But it goes way beyond that. Fans turn out at ballparks throughout MLB to watch Shohei Ohtani, but they don\u2019t wear Dodger shirts unless they\u2019re Dodgers fans. It was doubtless the same during the Tom Brady era, with fans clamoring to watch the greatest quarterback of all time without deigning to climb into a New England Patriots or Tampa Bay Buccaneers shirt.<\/p>\n It\u2019s different in soccer \u2014 that is, in the USA. Yes, there are plenty of expats who turn out at Gillette Stadium to watch Messi. Maybe even some ex-Pats. (Memo to self: Ring up old buddy Steve DeOssie, a former New England Patriot, and ask if he owns a Messi jersey.) Bottom line: Soccer fans in this country have a respect for the game that extends beyond team colors.<\/p>\n However, we need not bother with a statistical or sociological study to explain why this is so. Let\u2019s accept it for what it is. Besides, I have a larger point I want to make, and it begins with a question: Have there been times in the history of the Red Sox, Bruins, Celtics and Patriots when fans devoted an entire game to cheering a player on another team? (This is not a rhetorical question. You\u2019re invited to make your own submissions in the comments section.)<\/p>\n Leo makes it two! \ud83d\udc10<\/p>\n For the fourth straight MLS game, Messi has a brace. pic.twitter.com\/D3Lyt82sd4<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Major League Soccer (@MLS) July 10, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n We can all cite examples of former Boston sports heroes who returned to town and were wildly cheered \u2014 to a degree. Brady\u2019s return with the Bucs comes quickly to mind. Carlton Fisk with the Chicago White Sox as well. And, oh, Paul Pierce with the\u00a0 Brooklyn Nets. Among so many others. They were cheered, and then fans resumed rooting for the Pats, Red Sox and Celtics. I\u2019m certain Bruins legend Bobby Orr would have been cheered beginning to end had he ever played at the old Boston Garden as a member of the Chicago Blackhawks, just as Celtics legend Bob Cousy would have received similar treatment had he played at the Garden during his cameo with the Cincinnati Royals. Those guys were in a different class and from a different time. Alas, Orr\u2019s lone game against the Bruins was at Chicago Stadium, and Cousy\u2019s seven games with the 1969-70 Royals included no showdowns against the Celtics, so we\u2019ll never know.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve seen many instances in which Boston fans cheered a soon-to-retire opposing star who\u2019s in town for the last time. Yankees stars Catfish Hunter in 1979 and Derek Jeter in 2014 quickly come to mind. Richard Johnson, longtime curator of The Sports Museum, notes that Red Sox fans were in a particularly nostalgic mood on the night Hunter bade Fenway adieu, as they were waiting anxiously for Carl Yastrzemski to log his 3,000th career hit. Hunter came out of the game in the fifth inning. Yaz collected hit No. 3,000 in the eighth inning, a ground-ball single to right off Jim Beattie.<\/p>\n Johnson also cited that time when Boston fans cheered an entire opposing team. We speak, of course, of the closing minutes of Game 7 of the 1982 Eastern Conference finals, with the Philadelphia 76ers wrapping up what would be a 120-106 victory over the Celtics. That\u2019s when the Garden masses began chanting, \u201cBeat LA! Beat LA! Beat LA!\u201d \u2014 the idea being that, as much as they hated the 76ers, they hated the Los Angeles Lakers more. (The Lakers took out Philly in six games in the NBA Finals.)<\/p>\n My contribution here would be Opening Day at Fenway Park on April 8, 1975. The Fenway opener is always magical, but this one was in a class all its own. For the Red Sox, hometown hero Tony Conigliaro, who grew up on Boston\u2019s North Shore, was making his second comeback following the 1967 beaning that cruelly derailed his brilliant career. For the visiting Milwaukee Brewers, baseball\u2019s newly-crowned home run king, Henry Aaron, was about to play his first game in the American League. Aaron had originally signed with the Boston Braves, made it to the big leagues with the Milwaukee Braves, and broke Babe Ruth\u2019s all-time home run record with the Atlanta Braves. Now he was closing out his brilliant career with Milwaukee\u2019s American League club, and the baseball gods sent the Brewers to Boston to open the season.<\/p>\n I was there that day. We cheered wildly when Aaron was introduced during the pregame ceremony. We cheered wildly each time he came to bat. I believe I speak for the 34,055 fans in attendance when I state that everyone was rooting for Aaron to hit a home run. He did not. Instead, he went 0-for-3 and Luis Tiant pitched the Sox to a complete-game 5-2 victory. We\u2019d all have been happier had it been a 5-3 victory, with a home run by Hammerin\u2019 Hank supplying the extra run.<\/p>\n But even so, rooting for Aaron that day wasn\u2019t the same as Boston fans rooting for, say, Pel\u00e9. Look at it this way: Whether or not Aaron was playing for the Brewers, Fenway Park was going to be sold out on Opening Day in 1975.<\/p>\n Not so whenever Pel\u00e9 was in town. In an article for New England Soccer Journal in 2022, following Pel\u00e9\u2019s death at age 82, writer Frank Dell\u2019Apa notes that the Brazilian soccer legend made four playing appearances over the years in the Boston area. The first was the 1968 match at Fenway Park. The Boston Globe apparently didn\u2019t think it was a big deal, given that it sent an intern to cover the game. Then again, the intern was rising University of North Carolina senior Peter Gammons, who would later gain fame as one of the greatest baseball writers of all time.<\/p>\n As Gammons noted in his game story, \u201cPel\u00e9 received cheer after cheer from the curious crowd that had heard and read about his mystique, and although he only scored once and assisted on one goal he proved to be one of the most exciting athletes anyone has ever seen in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n It probably won\u2019t surprise you that Gammons, now 80, remembers the game as though it was played last night.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople wanted to appreciate him,\u201d Gammons told me. \u201cSoccer, football, whatever you want to call it, really wasn\u2019t very big at the time in Boston. I don\u2019t think it was entirely a Brazilian crowd, with everyone from New Bedford coming up. It was a large, appreciative crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n Nobody appreciated it more than Gammons.<\/p>\n \u201cI was still in college, and my fraternity was St. Anthony Hall, which had a lot of soccer and lacrosse players,\u201d Gammons said. \u201cI remember (sports editor) Fran Rosa from the Globe saying to me, \u2018I think you\u2019ll have some fun with this assignment. It\u2019s something different.\u2019 And it was. I was covering one of the most celebrated soccer players in soccer history playing in one of the most celebrated baseball parks in history.\u201d<\/p>\n Pel\u00e9\u2019s next visit to Boston was on June 30, 1972, with Santos FC taking on the Boston Astros of the American Soccer League. The result was pretty much the same \u2014 Santos 6, Astros 1 \u2014 but not the interest. Depending on which account you read, only 1,000 to 2,500 fans showed up. All kinds of reasons were given, from heavy fog and high ticket prices to \u201ca false radio report that the game was cancelled,\u201d according to the Globe.<\/p>\n Things were quite different on June 20, 1975, when Pel\u00e9, now playing for the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League, arrived at Nickerson Field to play Boston\u2019s latest pro soccer outfit, the Minutemen, and their big star player, Eus\u00e9bio.<\/p>\n Pel\u00e9 was 34 and past his prime, but no matter. A huge crowd turned out for the occasion, with estimates ranging from 18,000 to 20,000 to 22,000 to even 30,000. But no need to squabble. The old ballpark was packed and then some. And it only had seating for some 12,500.<\/p>\n The Minutemen won 2-1 in overtime. Eus\u00e9bio scored a goal on a direct kick. Pel\u00e9 put the ball in the net soon thereafter, but his effort was stricken from the books because of a pushing-off violation.<\/p>\n But ball control was not the story of this game. It was crowd control. As a result of too many people being crammed into too small an area and not enough security to keep everyone in line, fans rushed the field to a degree that Pel\u00e9 wound up being carried off the field on a stretcher. It\u2019s not clear if that was a precautionary measure, perhaps even an attempt to quell the crowd, but Pel\u00e9 did come out of it with a bruised right knee and ankle.<\/p>\n As Charles Scoggins of the Lowell (Mass.) Sun put it in his account of the game, \u201cWhen you read from time to time in the sports pages about those wild soccer riots in South America, you were always able to content yourself by thinking, thank goodness it can\u2019t happen here! Well, it can. And it almost did last night at Boston University\u2019s Nickerson Field.\u201d<\/p>\n Ouch.<\/p>\n All across the country, newspapers carried wire-service accounts that focused more on the crowd control than the actual game. Readers of the Biddeford-Saco Journal in Maine woke up to \u201cPel\u00e9 Mobbed by Frenzied Fans.\u201d The Honolulu Star-Bulletin went with \u201cMob Shakes Up Pel\u00e9.\u201d In The Berkeley (Calif.) Gazette it was, \u201cPandemonium reigns at Boston for Pel\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n There was no such mayhem Wednesday night at Gillette Stadium. The Revolution tend to draw a family crowd, and Gillette is a big, modern place with security people who know what they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n But just as at Fenway in \u201968 and Nickerson Field in \u201975, people came to see a legend. And that\u2019s not a bad thing.<\/p>\n It’s Messi! \u26a1<\/p>\n Miami takes the 1-0 lead in New England. pic.twitter.com\/xwuiAK3vLN<\/a><\/p>\n