Adidas and Lionel Messi Teamed Up on a Miami-Themed Pink Samba

If you want an idea of just how popular Lionel Messi is, look at the merchandise sales.

Days after it was announced that the legendary Argentine footballer would be heading stateside to join David Beckham’s Inter Miami Football Club in Florida, more than half a million retail stores got in touch with Adidas to request his jersey in the club’s signature pink Pantone 1895C hue. Last year, the MLS announced that Messi’s debut American kit was the most popular soccer jersey sold in 2023, despite the fact that Messi only joined the squad a few months before the end of the calendar year.

And now? Messi’s Miami shirt is—according to a report in The Athletic—the best-selling jersey in any sport. He’s that popular.

So it’s hardly surprising that Adidas would want to capitalize on the stratospheric success of its most coveted jersey by dropping a matching signature shoe. The Lionel Messi x Adidas Samba Indoor “Inter Miami FC” is currently being touted as “coming soon” in the United States following a recent international rollout—and you can guarantee that when it drops on this side of the pond later this year, it’s going to be an instant best-seller as well.

The special edition Messi-themed kicks will be releasing in two different colorways. The “Away Kit” edition is a standard black Samba with a gum sole set apart by its bright-pink upper heel and matching stripes along the side. The “Home Kit” edition, meanwhile, is even more eye-catching, swapping the colors so that the black is on the heel and stripes and the entire rest of the shoe is pink. This is the version that’s sure to appeal most to fans of Messi’s already iconic Inter Miami jersey, and with its clean pastel look, it’ll be an ideal sneaker for a summer-ready fit.

And if you really can’t wait to get your hands on these, you can get ahead of the US release by heading over to StockX, where a handful of enterprising European sneakerheads are already hawking the shoes.