Jordi Alba available for possible Inter Miami debut against rival Orlando City on Wednesday

Lionel Messi’s FC Barcelona Reunion Tour continues as Spanish left back Jordi Alba joined Messi and Sergio Busquets at Inter Miami training this week. He will be available for a possible debut in Wednesday’s Leagues Cup match against cross-state rival Orlando City at DRV PNK Stadium.

The Round of 32 knockout game kicks off at 8 p.m. and will be televised on Apple TV MLS Season Pass. Miami is coming off back-to-back wins since Messi and Busquets arrived.

Alba, the 34-year-old five-time La Liga champion and Spanish national team captain, is delighted to be back in South Florida. He and his wife, Romarey, spent their honeymoon in Miami and feel at home here with their three young children, Piero, Bruna and Paolo, who was born two weeks ago.

“Even though I’ve been here only three or four days, I feel like I’ve been here all my life,” Alba said Tuesday, in his first remarks since joining the team. “I am very happy to reunite with Leo and Busi. We are just three players in a group of very good players who must help us and us help them to be able to win as many titles as we can. We are also fortunate to have Tata (Martino, the coach), who knows us from the past. We are here to take Inter Miami as high as we can.”

Although he has not played a game since Spain’s Nations League final victory over Croatia in mid-June, he said he has been working out on his own and feels ready to contribute.

“I have trained well in Barcelona for many days, and though it is not easy to train alone, I got in touch with the coaches here and they made it very easy for me,” he said. “I worked hard to be able to compete when I got here, and I couldn’t wait to train with my teammates and see what they were like personally. They welcomed me spectacularly. The climate will take some getting used to.”

Alba, considered one of the best left backs of his generation, stands 5-7 and had to toil to get respect in his early years because, like Messi, he was undersized. He started his youth career at Barcelona, but coaches there felt he was too small, so he was released. He went on to Cornelia and Valencia, and then in 2012 returned to Barca, where he made 313 appearances over the past 11 seasons.

“I grew later than my teammates and it was obvious that all my teammates had matured physically, and I had not,” he told the Herald. “I left Barcelona and then I started to play well and grow. I never let my size discourage me.”

Alba’s parents were not big soccer fans. His mother was a special education teacher and his father worked in a kitchen supply store. Alba learned to play chess from his father, and the two played often throughout his childhood, but the passion for soccer he picked up from his two grandfathers and his brother.

Alba said he hopes to one day teach his children to play chess because “it’s a great game that makes you think.”

Thinking ahead and making smart decisions, both necessary in chess, are evident in how Alba plays soccer. His link ups with Messi and Busquets are legendary.

“(Alba), Busquets and Messi have a great connection,” said midfielder David Ruiz, a 19-year-old Little Havana native who added that the trio elevate his game. “In practice watching the runs he makes behind, overlaps, and Messi already knows him, so he plays him. There are times I look at them in practice and I’m like, `Where am I?’ to be playing with those three. Just seeing them next to me is a privilege. Just seeing them play the way they play. I am trying to learn so much from them.”

There were other teams wooing Alba this summer, but he said Inter Miami showed him the most love, he was intrigued by the project and once Messi and Busquets signed, he was sold on the idea.

Martino has been impressed by how the rest of the players have responded to Messi, Busquets and Alba.

“They are not overshadowed by the greatness of the those players, but instead are focused on being able to learn from everything that they have done their in their legendary careers,” Martino said.

“It is not easy for the players that we have here to receive players with so much history, with so many titles, with such a high level, with such a legacy in the world football. In that sense, I think we are on the right track.”

Note: Inter Miami on Tuesday announced the signing of center back Tomas Aviles of Argentina’s Racing Club, who turns 19 on Aug. 3 and was obtained under the Under-22 initiative. Aviles was born in Argentina but had Chilean dual citizenship through his mother’s family, represented Chile in younger years and switched to Argentina for the recent U-20 World Cup. Miami needs another center back after the season-ending knee injury to Ian Fray.