As Lionel Messi prepares to face Minnesota United, what's this circus all about?

If you know anything about soccer, you know something about Lionel Messi — and Saturday, Messi and Inter Miami are coming to Allianz Field, to take on the Loons.

If he's not the greatest soccer player of all time, he's at least one of three, maybe four names that are always in the running.

If you have kids, they adore him, probably. Famously private, he can all but shut down Disney World with his presence, with even the rumor of his presence. Taylor Swift and the new Pope might be the only two other humans alive who could understand the level of fame we're dealing with here.

MLS has seen star power before — think David Beckham — but Messi's presence is on another level. Put another way: Messi is almost certainly the only player in league history whose bodyguard has been publicly banned from the sideline.

If you don't know Messi, though, let me try to explain.

He does not immediately jump off your TV screen. He's listed at 5-7 and doesn't appear to be that tall. He's quick, but the numbers say he's not even in the top 15 fastest players on the Miami roster. On the field, he's mostly walking around, especially at age 37.

His greatness comes down to two things. First, he appears to be on a different plane of existence, when it comes to space — like he's both protected by a force field and can omnisciently see every angle of the field at all times. Second, he can move the ball in ways no one else can dream of, and he can do it at full speed.

To put it in football terms: Think of the best running back you ever saw.

Did you think of Emmitt Smith and his statistical dominance? Walter Payton and his grace? Maybe even peak-era Adrian Peterson, with his sheer power and speed and inevitability?

Or did you think of Barry Sanders, the man who consistently made you say, even after you saw the super slow-mo replay, "How in the heck did he do that?"

This is the thing about Messi: He's soccer's Barry Sanders. And its Walter Payton. And its Emmitt Smith. And even, despite his slight frame, a little bit of its Adrian Peterson.

Best-selling author Brian Phillips once wrote, "Messi came across as a mystically wise elf-boy who spoke no human languages and lived only for the enchantment of soccer."

Only someone who provoked so much joy in soccer fans could be so widely beloved.

And yet, soccerway.com also tells me that Messi has 749 goals in 897 career games for FC Barcelona, Paris St. Germain and Inter Miami, which puts him up there with the greatest stats-churning, frightening monsters of all time.

Only Messi can be both widely beloved and widely feared, somehow.

He's indescribably famous and indescribably rich, and he turned down a reported offer of around $1.5 billion – yes, with a "b" – from Saudi Arabia, in order to go to MLS. The MLS Players' Association says he's making just $20 million a year in guaranteed compensation, but if you subscribe to MLS Season Pass, he reportedly gets a cut of that, too.

Yet he's not a public spectacle. He mostly doesn't speak to the media. Clips of him shopping at Publix with his family made the rounds online, and some of the surprise seemed to be that he left the house at all.

So it's possible that the most famous person on Earth moved to the flashiest city in America, the one they call "the capital of Latin America," to play for tens of millions of dollars … because for him it represents the cheap, simple and quiet life.

In Miami, Messi has brought along some friends and created a kind of Weekly Barcelona Old-Timers' game. Luis Suarez, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, even coach Javier Mascherano; not too long ago, any one of them would have had a claim on being the biggest name in all of MLS.

That they are gathered on the same team seems unfair, and yet at the same time like a bad idea that shouldn't work. Counting Messi, all four are among the oldest 15 non-goalkeepers in MLS, all 36 or older.

In a league chock full of teams with straitlaced, disciplined tactical plans, Miami's games look more like a jazz odyssey — and yet the Herons topped the standings and led the league in goals scored last year.

Like Messi himself, the team doesn't seem like it should work all that well — and yet somehow, it works better than almost all the others.

Minnesota's Robin Lod is one of the few Loons to experience the Miami circus, at last year's All-Star game. Messi and Suarez didn't end up playing, after being injured, but Busquets and Alba did — and Lod got to remind Busquets that FC Barcelona had once visited Helsinki for a friendly, more than ten years ago. "He had a couple of good words about Finland, so that's nice," said Lod. He would have; Barcelona beat HJK 6-0 that day.

Even the low-key Lod couldn't hide his excitement to be playing against Miami. "The stupid [answer] would be that it's a game like every other," he said. "It's one of the greatest — if not the greatest — players of all time. And if you have a chance to play against him, it's special for sure because I don't think there's a guy on our team who hasn't watched or admired his work in the past."

That goes for soccer fans in general, all over the world.

Loons vs Inter Miami

3:30 p.m., Saturday at Allianz Field

TV; radio: MLS Season Pass on Apple TV+; 1500 AM, Sirius XM 157

Inter Miami (6-1-3) endured the indignity of losing three straight games two weeks ago, losing both legs of a CONCACAF Champions Cup semifinal to Vancouver, and blowing a lead to FC Dallas in between. A 4-1 victory over New York last week, with goals from Suarez and Messi, indicated that Miami was angry, not struggling. This may be the stiffest (non-Vancouver) test of the season for Minnesota (5-2-4).