Lionel Messi carried Inter Miami and FIFA as far as he could but football is a team game – The Athletic – The New York Times

As Paris Saint-Germain dissected Inter Miami’s feeble defence once more, allowing Achraf Hakimi to make it 4-0 before half-time, thoughts turned to what exactly the PSG head coach, Luis Enrique, might say to his players at the interval.
By this stage, PSG had emasculated their American opponents, scoring goals of the simplicity usually reserved for training drills or video games.
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It did not feel impossible that the UEFA Champions League winners might match the 10-0 scoreline Bayern Munich had inflicted upon the semi-professional outfit Auckland City in the group stage. For Lionel Messi, it was threatening to become the heaviest defeat of his career. He has lost by more than four goals once at club level — in Barcelona’s 8-2 defeat against Bayern Munich in the Champions League 2020 — and once at international level — when Argentina were beaten 6-1 by Bolivia in World Cup qualifying in 2009. Inter Miami head coach Javier Mascherano described it as “kind of a bloodbath”. Miami had not recorded a shot, a shot on target, or even earned a corner.
It was tempting to wonder, on a day when the stadium in Atlanta was decked out in a blur of flamingo pink and Messi apparel, if Enrique might simply play his players the meme from The Simpsons, when a child in the crowd urges Homer Simpson to stop beating up the Krusty Burglar: “Stop, sto-oo-op, he’s already dead!”
Certainly, his players took it easier in the second half, perhaps taking mercy on their bedraggled opponents, while Miami did show some spirit. Messi had a couple of dribbles and cute touches, though it was not entirely clear what Mascherano had been watching when he claimed that “Leo played an amazing game”.
It all felt rather detached from reality but also in keeping with the comic-book and superhero approach applied to Messi within the United States, where the individual so often appears to be king when marketing the sport in this country. Even when Messi has just been fine — it happens occasionally, even for him — superlatives must be applied.
It is not only Inter Miami who play this record, but also MLS and its broadcaster Apple, which at times appears to market the entire league around Messi, and also FIFA, whose increasingly frantic and faltering attempts to raise interest in the Club World Cup last autumn led it to shoehorn the Argentinian into the tournament.
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Following Inter Miami’s final regular-season home match of 2024, FIFA president Gianni Infantino inserted himself into the celebrations of winning the MLS Supporters’ Shield and amassing a record points tally.
Infantino, in a highly unusual step, took the microphone following a domestic league game — which FIFA has no part in organising or promoting — and stole the show. Standing in front of the Miami players, and next to franchise managing owner Jorge Mas, he informed the world that Miami would be handed a place in the Club World Cup, as a reward for having the MLS’ best regular-season record. There would be no guaranteed spot for the winners of the MLS Cup play-offs, who are widely regarded as the U.S. champions.
From the outside, it appeared as though Infantino had been determined to find a way in for Messi, the most famous player in the U.S., even if that meant overriding the way the country usually judges its most successful team of the season.
Infantino’s obsession with star names was underlined again closer to the tournament when he suggested, in an interview with influencer IShowSpeed, that talks were ongoing for Cristiano Ronaldo to move to a team competing in the competition. That move never materialised, with Ronaldo signing an extension at Saudi Arabian side Al Nassr.
Miami’s backdoor route in was one of the cynical moves that turned some away from the tournament, as a step that prioritised star names over true meritocracy, a carefully calibrated manipulation to fit the presumed wishes of the audience. By now, we all know that individual players are often more “followed” than club teams on social media, and how younger supporters, in particular, may defect from one team to another when a player is traded.
If everyone in Miami is content with a team that appears to revolve around one man — a world where one former Barcelona team-mate is coach and a trio of former Barcelona players are Miami team-mates — then fair enough. Yet FIFA ran the risk of discrediting its competition, or alienating fans across MLS and beyond, when Messi was made the centrepiece of this tournament.
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At the same time, for bums on seats, and dollars in the bank, it was probably a sound analysis of the broader American market, which is often entranced by moments and characters. And if the Club World Cup was to stand a chance of take-off — particularly after many false starts — Messi’s involvement represented Infantino taking a shot in the last-chance saloon.
When Messi headed to MLS, teams saw opportunities to jack up prices and milk the moment whenever the Argentinian was in town. FIFA saw this trend and seemingly fancied a slice of the action — particularly at the Club World Cup, a start-up tournament for which Infantino set expectations that were never likely to face up to reality. Infantino had hoped for billions of dollars from broadcasters, but instead needed a $1billion (£750million) bailout from the Saudi-funded DAZN, which was still a long way short of his initial ambitions.
Sponsors came to the party late and several were humble add-ons to existing FIFA agreements for the World Cup next year. Others, via Saudi and Qatari entities, appeared to be extensions of closer relations developed with FIFA as hosts for the men’s World Cups in 2022 and 2034. Few broadcasters or brands appeared to organically see the global standalone appeal of the Club World Cup before the tournament. Infantino had also placed an albatross around his neck by insisting matches be hosted at larger NFL stadiums, rather than taking the advice of some of his American-based FIFA colleagues to use more soccer-specific venues.
As all those issues mounted, the importance of Messi came to the fore. Not only were Miami given an unconventional route into the competition, but they would also begin the campaign in Florida at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.
FIFA once again misjudged the awareness and demand for its tournament, initially selling the cheapest tickets at $349 for the opener against Egyptian side Al Ahly, a price that dropped by hundreds closer to the game, with local students at Miami-Dade College then being offered five tickets for $20 in the week of the game to fill up the stadium.
Messi became the face of the tournament, building on his existing relationships with Adidas and InBev (who are also FIFA sponsors) to promote the competition, while FIFA’s marketing blitz on social media and on highway billboards placed Messi front and centre. It seemed to just about work, too, with Inter Miami games exceeding 60,000 attendances in three of their four matches (the exception being an afternoon group-stage game in Atlanta against Porto that attracted 31,783).
On the field, too, Messi’s commercial prominence was justified by one swish of his boot against Porto, as his free kick swung the game Miami’s way and the momentum of their group shifted with it. Certainly, Miami offered more than either Los Angeles FC or the Seattle Sounders in this tournament, and it is hard to imagine LA Galaxy, the MLS Cup winners, summoning more compelling viewing than the Miami veterans vying for one last dance at the summit of club football.
Yet there are limitations, even to Messi’s superpowers, because football is a team sport, made up of 11 players. According to Opta Sport’s power rankings, based on weighted results, Inter Miami are the 151st best team in world football, one place below Wrexham, five places behind Preston North End and just above Charlton Athletic. To watch Miami in their more ragged periods against Al Ahly and Palmeiras, or their most brutal spell of suffering against PSG, was to receive a reminder that this is a team who have ploughed almost all their expenditure into barely a handful of players, and it shows in their shortcomings.
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As football seeks to grow in the U.S., maybe that does not really matter. After all, this Miami team secured a record points tally last season, and if exposing Messi captures a new audience, then maybe it is a worthwhile strategy. Quite how sustainable that is, however, remains open to question. Do these fans come back to watch Miami after Messi leaves? Is there any player out there coming towards the end of his career who could even half-replicate the appeal Messi will leave behind? And does the league continue to invest its biggest resources into players on retirement tours? How does MLS change its rules and help its teams towards a place where they can genuinely compete in future Club World Cups? These are all open questions, and there are many more beyond that.
Miami’s opponents PSG offer a riposte to the individualism that has so besotted some in America and the FIFA president. For over a decade, as part of Qatar’s brand-building project before the World Cup in 2022, PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi appeared obsessed with star names, presuming they offered a fast track to success. He signed them all: David Beckham, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Messi, Neymar, Kylian Mbappe and plenty more. It was only after they all moved on that a team took shape under Luis Enrique, a squad of players who fight for each other, wreaking havoc in possession and straining every sinew for one another off the ball.
Luis Enrique was asked by The Athletic to explain this evolution.
“It is special (our collective spirit),” the PSG head coach concluded. “Every team wants to play in a collective way. This is not an individual sport. The most important thing is to be a team on and off the ball. That’s our idea.”
(Top photo: David J Griffin/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Adam Crafton is a British journalist based in New York City, having relocated from London in 2024. He primarily covers soccer for The Athletic. In 2024, he was named the Sports Writer of the Year by the Sports’ Journalist Association, after winning the Young Sports Writer of the Year award in 2018. Follow Adam on Twitter @AdamCrafton_

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