Out of sight, not exactly out of mind! Lionel Messi joined David Beckham's Inter Miami in July last year and helped the club to its first-ever piece of silverware – the Leagues Cup – just over a month later. Co-owned by Manchester United's former No. 7, the Herons have since experienced astonishing profile growth, shown in the new marketing and sponsorship opportunities taken by the Florida-based outfit and on their social media platforms. Prior to his arrival, which Messi announced a week before the club did, Inter Miami had just 2.5 million followers on Instagram. Today? 16.5 million! More important than that for us football fans, however, is the impact he's had on the field alongside other star players such as Jordi Alba, Sergio Busquets and Luis Suarez. How is he playing? And how does his presence at the MLS franchise influence the team's results? Soccer Laduma's Kurt Buckerfield tells you all you need to know.
Completing football on the biggest stage
Fans in South Africa have been used to watching Lionel Messi on their TV screens on a weekly basis, a privilege that ended when Argentina's captain left Barcelona as a free agent to sign for Paris Saint-Germain in 2021. From then, he was only accessible on UEFA Champions League nights and later at the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Months following his famous success with the Albiceleste in Qatar, it was decided by Messi and his loved ones that the family would take David Beckham up on his lucrative and exciting offer, bidding farewell to Europe after 19 glorious years during which he claimed 37 club trophies for Barca and PSG, and scored 704 goals – three more than his long-time rival Cristiano Ronaldo in 96 fewer matches. Captaining Argentina to a Copa America triumph in 2021, ending his country's 28-year trophy drought in the process, would have left Messi with the feeling that his mission was completed, but going all the way in the Middle East and dropping one of the greatest individual tournament performances ever seen allowed him to bow out at the highest level – at least when it comes to club football – in total peace.
An instant impact in the United States
With many high-profile footballers, such as Beckham, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Andrea Pirlo, having enjoyed stints in America over the past 20 years, Messi's status as one of the true greats wouldn't have been unknown to MLS followers. Just like a South African can reference basketball and baseball icons without having an interest in those particular sports, even non-sports fans in the country, at the very least, had heard his name. Now, nine months into his stay in Miami, they're beginning to understand exactly what all the fuss was about! Little over a month following his big-money arrival at Inter Miami, the club celebrated its maiden trophy when they won the 2023 Leagues Cup – a competition founded in 2019 that is contested by MLS and Liga MX (Mexico) teams. If his colleagues imagined he was in the United States to enjoy a mini-retirement in the beautiful Miami sunshine, they quickly learned he meant business after he scored a match-winning stoppage-time freekick on debut. Messi then struck three consecutive braces, before finding the back of the net in his new team's quarterfinal, semifinal and final wins and finishing as the tournament's top goalscorer (with 10 strikes). He scored in every game of the competition and, following Inter Miami's final triumph, was deservedly handed the Best Player Award. A week later, the former Barcelona captain made his MLS debut from the bench – scoring in a 2-0 victory over the New York Red Bulls, but muscle injuries unfortunately disrupted the rest of his first campaign in America, with 2024 set to be his first full season in the country.
The start of the 2024 campaign
Inter Miami have played 11 matches since the season got underway in February, although Messi has only been available for six of those games due to injury troubles. The Argentine has already registered six goals, four in the MLS and two in the CONCACAF Champions Cup, and assisted two more. His latest strike came upon his return from a spell on the sidelines – which forced him to miss Argentina's friendlies against El Salvador and Costa Rica last month – scoring in a 2-2 league draw with the Colorado Rapids. After eight matches, the Herons are currently third in the Eastern Conference, in which they need to finish in the top four in order to qualify for the MLS playoffs – a knockout system comprised of four sides from the Eastern Conference and four sides from the Western Conference that later determines the winner of the MLS Cup. Questions, however, have already been raised over Inter Miami's dependence on the 36-year-old! In the games in which he has featured this term, the Florida-based team have picked up three victories and drawn three times, while they have won only once this season so far while Messi has been sidelined. In total, since he signed for the club in July last year, the Herons have claimed only two victories in the 13 matches that their No. 10 and captain has missed, a worrying statistic when compared to the 14 wins in 20 games with him. This kind of reliance that Barcelona seemed to experience in his last few years in LaLiga was famously called "Messidependencia" by Spanish press, and it is happening again, only this time 7 159 kilometres away. While Beckham and head coach Gerardo Martino, who coached Messi in Spain and on the international stage with Argentina, will desperately want the team to be sustainable in his absence, it can't be denied that his influence on results is befitting of his legendary reputation.
Is he playing at the upcoming Copa America?
Having been in the Argentina set-up since 2005, Messi's relationship with his national team and country appears stronger than ever after his back-to-back successes in 2021 and 2022. While it is approaching an end, the eight-time Ballon d'Or winner is committed to representing the South American champions at the 2024 Copa America, which could very well be his final international tournament, and potentially the last time fans get to see him in Argentina's blue and white altogether! Messi admitted recently in an interview that he would have retired from international duty if the Albiceleste lost the World Cup final in Qatar, perhaps proving his decision to continue was inspired by the positive feeling in the camp. The South American competition will be played between 20 June and 14 July this year, a period during which Inter Miami are currently scheduled to play four MLS matches. Of course, however, he could also miss games before and after the tournament as part of his preparation and rest, which could mean Martino and his team will be without their talisman for up to seven matches should Argentina go to the final in what will be the business end of the campaign, with the threat of poor form in his absence having the potential to derail their MLS Cup hopes. This, though, won't bother Beckham and majority owner Jorge Mas, who'd have already crunched the numbers. In 2023, winners of the MLS Cup Los Angeles FC were given $300 000 (R5.59 million) in prize money, a small and insignificant fee when compared to the $200 million (R3.7 billion) in revenue the club's chief business officer Xavier Asensi has said they're projecting to make in 2024 largely based on Messi's arrival.
MESSI AT INTER MIAMI IN NUMBERS
20 appearances
17 goals
7 assists
1 trophy
*All statistics accurate at the time of writing.
