Lionel Messi returns to India for a high-profile, non-competitive tour across Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Delhi, featuring promotional events, celebrity interactions, and philanthropy. Fans anticipate spectacle, though former footballers critique the visit for lacking actual football action and engagement

Kolkata: Argentine superstar Lionel Messi’s long-awaited return to India, after a magical maiden visit back in 2011, will be high on glitz but low on actual football, promising a spectacle that may not recapture the raw sporting frenzy that once shook the Salt Lake Stadium here.

His artistry in a competitive match will be missing this time. It would be quite unlike 2011 when more than 85,000 fans packed the stadium, some even perched on terrace edges, to watch Argentina edge Venezu

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