Leo Messi discards the current champion of the Spanish League, Barcelona, to join the third worst team in MLS. Sportingly, which is not everything in the Argentine's decision because it is a life choice - he already had a house there -, it can be summed up like this. Inter Miami is bottom of the Eastern Conference of the American competition and has just fired its former coach, Phil Neville.
Add five wins and eleven losses in this 2023, five of them consecutive. In the last three games he has only scored one goal... in the 92nd minute.
David Beckham's project, he is co-owner of the club, is having a hard time getting off the ground. Inter Miami was founded in 2018 when it received the go-ahead to join the MLS and made its debut in 2020. It is only four years old (far from the 125 that Barça will be in November 2024) and has never won a title. What's more, they have never won a playoff round for the title.
Neither in 2020 (tenth in the East) nor in 2021 (eleventh) did he agree to the fight for the trophy. Yes, what he did last year when he was sixth in the regular league, but in the first round he was thrashed by New York City by a clear 3-0.
Currently, on an interim basis, there is an Argentine on the bench. It is Javier Morales, a former soccer player from Buenos Aires, who came to soccer in 2007, after passing through the Canarian Neighborhood, although the board longed for Tata Martino, who already directed Messi at the Camp Nou and in the national team. In addition, in the squad, Messi will meet four more compatriots. Although the best players are the Colombian Josef Martínez, the Mexican Rodolfo Pizarro and the Ecuadorian Campana.
Inter Miami plays at the DRV PNK Stadium, located in Fort Lauderdale, which holds less than 20,000 spectators. Although the idea is that a new house can be inaugurated in 2025, in Freedom Park, with capacity for 25,000 people. We will have to get used to seeing Messi, until now almost always in blue and red, with a pink kit, the one that Gonzalo Higuaín wore until his retirement at the end of 2022. The second uniform is black.
At the dawn of soccer in the United States, Pelé, Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller, Neeskens, Best, Chinaglia and Carlos Alberto were pioneers. There was a time at the beginning of the 2010s when Thierry Henry, Rafa Márquez, David Beckham or Robbie Keane met in the MLS. More recently three European legends like Ibrahimovic, Schweinsteiger and Rooney landed together. Currently, after Higuaín's goodbye, it is difficult to find big stars beyond the Mexicans Chicharito or Vela and the Italians Chiellini, Insigne or Bernardeschi.
