‘Walk more’ – David Beckham reveals Lionel Messi’s 'best bit of advice' to Inter Miami academy stars

The seven-time Ballon d’Or winner completed a stunning move to the United States in the summer of 2023. Beckham – as a co-owner at DRV PNK Stadium – helped to put that deal in place and saw his faith rewarded in a historic Leagues Cup triumph.

Messi is currently nursing an untimely injury, preventing him from helping Inter Miami towards the MLS play-offs, but he is putting his vast experience to good use. Starry-eyed youngsters have been looking to him for advice, with the World Cup winner happy to pass on the knowledge that he has picked up down the years.

Beckham has told the Stick to Football podcast, brought to you by Sky Bet: “To bring in Leo has changed everything. The academy kids have someone to look up to, who has done everything, won everything, and he’s teaching them, which is amazing. There was an interview the other day with one of the academy kids, who is doing well, and they turned round to him and said, ‘what’s the best bit of advice that Leo has given you so far?’ And he said, ‘to walk more’. He said ‘to walk more because you see more’ so it’s already started with the good that he does. It’s incredible.”

Beckham added on how he managed to talk Messi into making a move to the United States, with a return to Barcelona being speculated on heavily at one stage as the South American prepared to leave Paris Saint-Germain as a free agent: “I sneaked into Messi’s dad’s hotel about four years ago in Barcelona for a meeting with him and obviously, at that point, we weren’t ready to bring him in and he wasn’t ready to come. I turned around to his dad and said, ‘we want your son, we want him to come to Miami when he’s ready’, and if that’s a possibility. We continued the conversations, and with my partners, Jorge Mas and Jose [Mas], we just worked on it for about four years.”