Messi, World Cup, Premier League: Soccer heats up in Philadelphia and around the world this week. Beautiful

It’s football season in Philly. Games at the Linc. In summer. Beautiful.

No, not that football. The real stuff.

For two days, Philadelphia will be the center of the men’s soccer world. The Premier League, cashing in on soccer’s stateside surge in popularity, is staging a six-team, nine-game summer exhibition tour in five U.S. cities. The series kicks off in South Philadelphia this weekend.

» READ MORE: What Premier League team should someone from Philly support?

It’s like when the Eagles played preseason games in London in the summers of 1989 and 1991, except no one there really cared about American football back then (or now, frankly). The soccer world is larger than the NFL world, and international football is reaching crescendos on several platforms this week.

Lionel Messi, the best player of his era, was introduced Sunday at Inter Miami, the MLS team with which the 36-year-old will spend his soccer dotage. Inter Miami owner David Beckham, the English superstar who turbocharged MLS by joining the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2007, shared Messi’s stage. Messi debuted Friday night and scored a storybook, stoppage-time, game-winning goal as Beckham looked on in awe.

Megan Rapinoe and the U.S. women’s national team beat Vietnam on Saturday — Friday night Eastern Time — in New Zealand in her final Women’s World Cup. The tournament’s championship match in 2019 pulled better TV ratings in the U.S. than the 2018 men’s final.

All of this comes on the heels of the Union, with a homegrown coach in Jim Curtin and homegrown talent including Quinn Sullivan and Brandan Craig, reaching the MLS Cup final in November and delivering the best soccer match in league history.

» READ MORE: For Jim Curtin it’s ‘a heartbreaking loss,’ but he appreciates the Union’s all-time effort

And, of course, the city is in the midst of preparations for the men’s World Cup matches it will host in 2026.

Philly’s not exactly a soccer town, but, with spiking immigration, access to worldwide broadcasts, and thriving grass-roots programs all over the Delaware and Lehigh Valleys, it’s not the soccer desert it was even 20 years ago. On the weekend before Eagles training camp begins, it’s a soccer oasis.

This weekend, the Linc will host English giants Chelsea against Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday at 7 p.m. Fulham plays Brentford on Sunday at 4 p.m., followed by Newcastle United and Aston Villa at 7 p.m. in the second game of the doubleheader. Plenty of good seats remain.

(For the record, our family supports Newcastle and its annual flirtation with relegation, though with misgivings about the club’s new Saudi connections. I even own a personalized Newcastle jersey. It’s the only sports jersey I’ve ever owned.)

These aren’t the only matches involving European teams happening in America this summer. Manchester United is touring, too, facing a variety of teams from a variety of leagues, as well as taking part in the Soccer Champions Tour, a six-team, eight-site series that also includes Arsenal, of the Premier League; Juventus and A.C. Milan, of Italy’s Serie A; and Barcelona and Real Madrid, of Spain’s LaLiga.

It’s been fascinating to watch Philadelphia thrust into a leading role in soccer’s glacial march toward relevance in America over the past 15 years; toward significance the past five years; and, perhaps, toward prominence in my lifetime. It’s fascinating, and it is an honor. Philadelphia soccer fans don’t boast the numbers seen with the other four sports — Subaru Park, my favorite sporting site in the country, holds only 18,500 fans — but they are peerless in passion and knowledge.

» READ MORE: Can a new-look USWNT team actually win the World Cup? We’re about to find out.

So no, a few Premier teams playing slap-and-tickle soccer does not foretell a soccer explosion in the United States. Messi is 36, and him playing out the string in Miami would be like a then-39-year-old Bryce Harper leaving the Phillies after his contract expires in 2031 ... and playing in Japan for three more years. Of course, if, like Messi, Harper was offered more than $50 million a year, he might just say domo arigato and sayonara.

Perhaps my grandchildren will see the talent level of MLS improved to the point that it can compete with the Premier League or Messi’s longtime home, LaLiga, or Germany’s Bundesliga, which was the league I grew up watching (Don’t ask. It’s complicated).

I’m not rooting against it, certainly. I won three varsity soccer letters in high school. All three of my kids play in intense travel leagues. We roll deep: We own six coolers, four of them with wheels; two collapsible shelters; and a six-person collapsible bench that never leaves the minivan. We have an air pump in every vehicle, and, next to the back door from the garage sit two devices designed to dry ski boots and mittens. We use them to dry out wet cleats (oh Lord, the smell).

We are fans. We check out the Union every year. We recorded and watched every World Cup game the women’s national team played in four years ago; we will do the same this year. The only show my wife and I watch together is Ted Lasso, though I wish, in our relationship, she could be more like a goldfish.

We are very much a soccer family. And we, like legions of Philly families, are delighted that the Philly soccer scene this summer is as hot as Wildwood beach sand.

In a world that simultaneously grows smaller and more divided, soccer has become the single unifying force. Philadelphia gets its best taste of that this weekend.