In February, Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami will play Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al Nassr in the Riyadh Season Cup. This could be the last time these two great football players ever play each other.
Winner of the Ballon d’Or eight times Messi, who joined the US team in July and led them to victory in the League Cup against US and Mexican teams, is likely to play Ronaldo, who has won the Ballon d’Or five times.
Messi, 36, led Argentina to the World Cup title last year. He has been a foe of Portugal leader Ronaldo, 38, for a long time.
Inter Miami was named the guest foreign team and will play in the Riyadh Season Cup next February along with Al-Hilal and Al Nassr from the Saudi Pro League. However, the exact dates for the round-robin games at Kingdom Arena were not released.
Messi used to play with Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets at Barcelona, where they won five La Liga titles together.
Ronaldo, who has won the Champions League five times, is joined on Al Nassr by Sadio Mane, who used to play for Liverpool, and Marcelo Brozovic, who used to be captain of Inter Milan.
Neymar, Brazil’s all-time top scorer, plays for Al-Hilal while he heals from a knee injury.
Ronaldo played his first game in Saudi Arabia after moving to Al Nassr in January. He was on the Riyadh All-Star XI, which lost 5–4 to a Paris Saint-Germain team that had Messi, Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, and Sergio Ramos.