adidas Inter Miami CF "2getherness"

The "2getherness" shoe is a pink lifestyle sneaker released by Inter Miami CF in partnership with adidas in December 2023, built on the adidas Originals Handball Spezial silhouette rather than a football boot or the Samba line used elsewhere in Messi's adidas footwear catalog. It is officially a club product, branded and sold as "Inter Miami CF" merchandise rather than a personal Messi signature shoe, and Inter Miami's own announcement and most contemporary press coverage (Inter Miami CF's official site, NBC Miami, Footy Headlines, Sportskeeda, Sole Retriever) do not credit it as a Messi collaboration by name. Its connection to Messi is contextual and commercial rather than contractual: it was released roughly four months after Messi's blockbuster July 2023 arrival at Inter Miami, during the period when the club's global visibility, merchandise sales, and adidas kit-supplier partnership were all being supercharged by his presence, and it shares its name, pink/black colorway, and Spanish/English "Libertad Para Soñar" ("Freedom To Dream") motto with the club's 2024 "2getherness" primary kit, which Messi wore prominently throughout the 2024 MLS season. Coverage from outlets like Goal.com and Sportskeeda explicitly frames the shoe within the broader wave of pink Messi-era Inter Miami product drops, even while noting the shoe itself was not marketed as a Messi personal-signature item the way the Samba or Gazelle Messi lines were.

The shoe launched on Tuesday, December 5, 2023 at 10 a.m. ET, sold online via adidas.com and the MLS Store, with in-person sales beginning the next day, Wednesday, December 6, 2023, at the Inter Miami CF Team Store at DRV PNK Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, while supplies lasted. It sold out quickly enough that by the time of at least one contemporary report it was already listed as sold out on MLSstore.com. Notably, the shoe's December 2023 release preceded the formal unveiling of Inter Miami's 2024 "2getherness" primary jersey, which the club revealed on Monday, January 29, 2024 (going on sale that same day at 10 a.m. ET), meaning the shoe effectively previewed the "2getherness" name, color story, and bilingual "Freedom To Dream / Libertad Para Soñar" motto roughly two months before the matching kit itself was officially shown to the public.

The shoe is finished predominantly in Inter Miami's signature pink (the club's primary "Heron pink," matching the deeper "Easy Pink" shade later used on the 2024 primary kit) with black trim throughout. Design details tie the shoe directly to Inter Miami's club identity and its wordmark/motto system rather than to Messi individually: "Libertad Para Soñar" ("Freedom To Dream") is stitched on the lateral heel/upper, echoing the phrase embroidered inside the collar of the matching 2024 jersey; an M-shaped "EKG"/heartbeat line is embossed on the insole as what the club described as an ode to "the Heartbeat of the Club, our fans"; and a Heron stamp (the club's secondary crest mark) appears on the tongue, described by Inter Miami as symbolizing unity. A tongue graphic reportedly also carried the line "In Order to Be Number 1, We Must Go 2gether," directly explaining the "2getherness" wordplay behind the shoe and kit name (a nod to the club's dual-city identity spanning Miami and Fort Lauderdale, and its bilingual, bicultural fan base).

Inter Miami framed the release as a merchandising milestone: Mike Ridley, the club's SVP of Brand and Marketing, said, "We're very excited to bring our first pink shoe to life together with our great partners adidas," explicitly calling it the club's first-ever dedicated pink sneaker release. The shoe arrived amid what multiple outlets described as an unprecedented surge in Inter Miami's commercial profile following Messi's 2023 arrival: Sportskeeda's coverage noted that "Lionel Messi's joining" had driven increased media attention and fan enthusiasm that provided the commercial backdrop for the collaboration's timing, even though the shoe was not an explicit Messi signature product. When the matching "2getherness" jersey was formally unveiled in January 2024, Ridley connected it to the club's prior "Heartbeat Kit," saying: "Like its predecessor The Heartbeat Kit, The 2getherness Jersey is all about the small details and continuing to own pink." Because the shoe used the same name, color, and slogans months ahead of the jersey reveal, it functioned as an early, footwear-first extension of the "2getherness" brand concept, one of several ways adidas and Inter Miami cross-promoted pink as the club's dominant visual identity during the early Messi era. Demand appears to have been strong: the shoe reportedly sold out on at least one retail channel (MLSstore.com) shortly after launch, and it continues to trade on the sneaker resale/marketplace circuit (StockX lists it under style code HQ8999).

The "2getherness" is a Messi-era artifact rather than a Messi shoe: a pink Handball Spezial released as official Inter Miami club merchandise in December 2023, four months into the Messi Mania wave, previewing the name and palette of the 2024 kit two months before the jersey itself dropped. The Spezial silhouette it sits on is one of the most-loved terrace shoes of the decade, comfortable, well-made, and wide-foot friendly, so it wears as well as it displays. It sold out quickly at $110 and now trades on StockX and Stadium Goods, but its collector ceiling is capped by the fact that it was never marketed as a Messi signature product; buy it as a club piece and a genuinely good sneaker, not as Messi memorabilia.