Son Heung-min of Los Angeles FC is set to face Lionel Messi of Inter Miami, widely regarded as one of football's greatest players. According to the 2026 Major League Soccer schedule released Nov. 21, Los Angeles FC will open the season against Inter Miami at 11:30 a.m. on Feb. 22 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles. Son and Messi are the marquee stars of Major League Soccer. Messi, who joined Inter Miami in 2023, scored 20 goals and had 16 assists in the 2024 regular season and won the 2025 scoring title with 29 goals. Son, who left Tottenham Hotspur of the English Premier League after 10 seasons and joined Major League Soccer in August, quickly established himself as a leading player in the Western Conference, scoring nine goals and providing three assists in 10 regular-season matches. MLS listed the season opener between LAFC and Inter Miami as one of the top 10 must-see games of the 2026 season. Reflecting the magnitude of the matchup, the game will be held at the LA Memorial Coliseum instead of LAFC's usual home, BMO Stadium. The Coliseum, with a seating capacity of 77,500, is a multipurpose venue that hosts American football and track and field events. It also is slated to host the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The stadium is more than three times larger than BMO Stadium, which seats 22,000. The upcoming matchup between Son and Messi will be their first official meeting in seven years. Their last encounter came during the 2018-19 UEFA Champions League group stage, when Messi's FC Barcelona earned one win and one draw against Son's Tottenham Hotspur. Inter Miami and LAFC both reached the Eastern and Western Conference semifinals of the 2025 MLS Cup playoffs. If both teams advance through their conference finals to the championship match, Son and Messi could face each other again sooner on the field. Before facing Messi, Son must first get past Bayern Munich legend Thomas Müller, now with Vancouver. LAFC will play a single-elimination match against Vancouver on Nov. 23 for a spot in the conference final. Müller, a longtime Munich icon, appeared in 756 matches and scored 250 goals. Since joining Vancouver in August, he has scored seven goals in seven regular-season matches. This is not the first meeting between Son and Müller. The two faced each other in the 2024 Coupang Play Series held in South Korea last August, when Bayern Munich defeated Tottenham 2-1. In the third match of the group stage at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, which South Korea won 2-0, Son scored a stoppage-time goal that eliminated Germany and ended Müller's tournament run. In a recent interview with British outlet TalkSport, Müller said, "When Son was playing for Hamburg or Leverkusen in the Bundesliga, we at Munich always dominated by scores like 8-2 or 9-1." 한종호기자 hjh@donga.com