The MLS Cup playoffs kicked off Wednesday with Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami no where in sight, his Herons having been eliminated from postseason contention weeks ago.
No matter. Whatever team ends up posing for pictures following the Dec. 9 championship match, the story of Major League Soccer’s 2023 season is all about the GOAT.
Messi stunned the sports world in June, when he announced — before having signed a contract or even formally notifying league officials, including MLS commissioner Don Garber — that after two years with French champ Paris Saint-Germain, he would continue his otherworldly career in South Florida.
It was a landmark achievement for MLS, Messi having chosen the American and Canadian top flight over not just a far more lucrative offer from Saudi Arabia, but also a potential return to Barcelona, the club he joined as a boy and spent the next two decades at on the way to immortality.
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But Messi’s much anticipated debut for Miami had to wait. His pact with PSG ended at the end of the month, and a complicated deal with Inter, MLS and league partners Adidas and Apple TV had to be ironed out. Messi had two late June friendlies to play for Argentina’s national team, and he’d need a short vacation following the longest season of his life — one that included a legacy-cementing World Cup win for the Albiceleste smack in the middle of it. Yet when Messi finally stepped on the field rocking Miami’s hot pink for the first time, his performances more than lived up to the hype.
The summer of Messi
Don’t get it twisted: Messi’s first season in MLS was a roaring success on the field despite the playoff miss. Commercially, the signing was always going to be a game changer for the North American circuit, with millions of Messi fans around the world who otherwise ignored MLS suddenly streaming his games. From a purely sporting perspective, he and former Barça teammates Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets transformed Miami — which was dead last among the league’s 29 clubs before he arrived — into a different team overnight.
Messi came off the bench in his first appearance for Miami, on July 21, and in an introduction beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, scored a spectacular free kick in stoppage time to beat Mexico’s Cruz Azul in the Leagues Cup.
That novel tournament, a 47-team affair featuring every squad from MLS and Mexico’s Liga MX, allowed Messi’s tenure at DRV PNK Stadium in Ft. Lauderdale to begin with a clean slate.
He started the next six games and scored nine goals, including in the Leagues Cup final against Nashville SC, as Miami took the title. Less than a month into his stay in America, Messi had already led his new team to a major trophy.
Injury and an anticlimactic end to Year 1
There was a steep price to pay for that instant success. While the 36-year-old has been remarkably durable throughout his career, the seven Leagues Cup games in just 30 days and the travel between them clearly took a physical toll. After playing all 120 minutes and delivering two assists in the U.S. Open Cup semifinal win over Cincinnati on Aug. 23, coach Tata Martino rested Messi in the first half of his regular season debut against the New York Red Bulls.
In front of a sold out crowd, with thousands more watching in Times Square a few miles east of Red Bull Arena, Messi entered of the bench in the second half to (of course) score the game-winner.
Messi started Inter Miami’s next two league games, setting up two of the visitors three strikes in a star-studded 3-1 win in Los Angeles over defending MLS Cup champ LAFC. But that was as good as it got in MLS play.
After scoring the only goal in Argentina’s Sept. 7 World Cup qualifying victory over Ecuador, Messi sat out his country’s next qualifier with a muscle injury. He didn’t travel to Atlanta for Miami’s first match afterward, then limped off after just 37 minutes against Toronto. He missed the U.S. Open Cup final loss to Houston a week later and the Herons next three league contests, too. With his team on the brink of playoff elimination, Messi returned for a must-win Oct. 7 tilt with FC Cincinnati, the 2023 Supporters Shield winner. He couldn’t stave off the inevitable, though, as FCC prevailed 1-0 to officially knock Miami out.
What to expect from Messi, Inter Miami in 2024
That Miami was even in contention until October is down to Messi and Messi alone. After losing 13 of 16 games between March and June, making the postseason cut was always going to mission impossible – even for the GOAT.
However disappointed Messi was, it didn’t show: he scored twice in Argentina’s 2-0 World Cup qualifying win in Peru on Oct. 17, then went 90 minutes in Miami’s season finale, a 1-0 loss in Charlotte last weekend.
Instead of chasing MLS Cup this fall, Messi and Miami will head to China next month for a pair of lucrative exhibitions. Argentina’s final two qualifiers of 2023 are later in November, the second against its historic rival Brazil.
Messi, perhaps for the first time as a pro, will get an extended break after that. He recently ended any speculation that he’ll head back to Barça on loan this winter, meaning he ought to be rested, healthy and fresh when he reports for Miami’s preseason camp.
Hired just before Messi joined, Martino will surely look to upgrade the Herons supporting cast this winter. That process is already underway: On Wednesday, the club declined to extend forward Josef Martinez, potentially opening a roster spot for Uruguayan striker Luis Suárez, another of Messi’s former running buddies from the Camp Nou.
The new MLS season begins in February. Miami will also compete in the CONCACAF Champions Cup starting in March. What will Messi do for an encore in 2024? Time will tell. A playoff berth seems likely if he stays healthy. But this much is certain: we’ll all be watching the GOAT’s every move once again.
Doug McIntyre is a soccer writer for FOX Sports. Before joining FOX Sports in 2021, he was a staff writer with ESPN and Yahoo Sports and he has covered United States men’s and women’s national teams at multiple FIFA World Cups. Follow him on Twitter @ByDougMcIntyre.
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