‘Its mediocrity has grown on me’: time almost up for intimate stopgap stadium Messi calls home

The club will finally begin playing in Miami next season. For local fans near Chase Stadium there are mixed emotions

From an abandoned and derelict symbol of failed efforts to establish professional football in south Florida, to the arena where Lionel Messi has dazzled MLS while attracting visitors from around the globe. It has been a unique journey for the site where Fort Lauderdale's Lockhart Stadium once stood.

Even after all these years it's so funny to me that Lionel Messi, one of the most famous faces in the history of mankind, is not only playing for our club but playing in this stadium that was abandoned," said Nico Abad, a member of The Siege supporters' group and a native of Broward County, where Chase Stadium stands on the former site of Lockhart. It's where kids would go to do doughnuts and to smoke and drink."