Minerva Academy’s prodigies, who won three European youth trophies earlier this year, will be felicitated in the presence of Lionel Messi during the GOAT Tour of India in New Delhi.
The Under-14/15 squad of 22 players from the Punjab-based academy toured Europe in July-August and won three major youth tournaments — Gothia Cup in Sweden, Dana Cup in Denmark and Norway Cup in Norway — and reached the final at the Helsinki Cup in Finland.
“I was very pleasantly surprised last week when we got informed that not only do we have an honour to do that, but we also have been given the responsibility of also arranging a celebrity match there, which will be a 9v9 match,” Ranjit Bajaj, the founder of Minerva Academy, tells Sportstar.
Messi, who won the last edition of the FIFA World Cup, will tour four Indian cities, starting with Kolkata on December 13. He will then travel to Mumbai the next day after a stopover in Hyderabad, before making his third stop at the national capital.
“It’s a huge honour to be actually able to showcase Indian junior football. I genuinely believe they are some of the best we (as a country) have,” Bajaj adds.
“A special pitch is being prepared right in the middle of the stadium for the event. Messi is also going to do some coaching clinics for little kids.”
Minerva, which previously also owned Punjab FC, has ventured into youth tournaments across Europe frequently in the last few years, becoming the first Indian side to win the Gothia Cup in 2023, a tournament that had paved the path for legends like Andrea Pirlo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
With Messi too, the club will have a connection soon.
Next year, Minerva plans to travel to Costa Brava in Spain, for the MIC Cup – a tournament where a 16-year-old Messi had turned heads in 2003 before making his senior team debut with Barcelona a year later.
The most recent star to emerge from that tournament is Lamine Yamal. He is now a European Champion and a two-time Kopa Trophy winner.
“For the first time in the history of Indian football, someone’s going to be taking on teams like Barcelona,” Bajaj adds. “Even though it’s an age group tournament, it has (youth sides of) Barcelona, Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United — it’s like the Club World Cup for the juniors.”
Messi was previously slated to play an international friendly in Kerala last month, but that match was called off.
But the sight of a World Cup-winning captain and an eight-time Ballon d’Or winner, albeit with no matchday action, from close proximity is bound to draw millions of fans and inspire a generation that has already started making inroads in Europe.
Published on Dec 05, 2025