In a seismic move for Major League Soccer, Lionel Messi moves to Inter Miami after his contract expires on Paris St Germain. While Messi won’t be able to play for the club until after the summer transfer window opens on July 5, this will be a monumental move for the Herons, who are bottom of the Eastern Conference table.
Messi will have to take one of their three Designated Player tags when he joins the club, which requires some roster mechanics since Josef Martinez, Rodolfo PizarroAnd Gregory occupy those three slots, but the club will find a way to make things happen by buying out or moving a member of the trio.
That won’t be the only change needed to fit the legendary Argentinian.
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The Herons will also need to bring in a coach as Phil Neville was fired for his performance and it offers Miami a chance to swing for the fences. Tata Martino is one who has been linked to join, but the line of managers who would like to join the club with Messi is longer than you can count. The pressure will be high as whoever leads the side is expected to deliver results from day one and the magnifying glass on the club couldn’t be bigger once Messi takes the field.
There are things that are nice about the selection as Leonardo Campana and Martinez are great attacking power and they will have Messi backing them up, but while that helps the attack, it doesn’t help that this team conceded 21 goals in 16 games played. This isn’t a terrible number, but with the team getting heavier on offense and then having to repel players to make the money work, they need to be careful not to neglect the defensive side of the ball. But while they will repel players, others like it Sergio Busquets And Luis Suarez are goals the team can add over the summer.
What Miami looks like now and what the team will look like when the transfer window opens on July 5 are two very different things. The anticipation for the club’s performance when Messi takes the field is already visible a team that was 200-1 yesterday to win the title is currently 30-1 and falling. With additions, subtractions and the integration of Messi, things are quickly changing in Miami.
What to expect
While Messi is now 35, playmaking isn’t something that’s fading anytime soon, and as his vision is unparalleled in the world, let alone the MLS, Campana and Martinez can do the running for him. Just after winning the World Cup and Ligue 1, Messi also grabbed 16 goals and 16 assists domestically. The best recent comparison might be with the arrival of Messi Lorenzo Badges coming to Toronto from Naples. Messi has similar offensive numbers in the top line. Over his two seasons before coming, Insigne scored 30 league goals and assisted another 16, while Messi scored 22 and assisted 40.
Insigne plays a different role, requiring him to use his legs more, but even with just 21 MLS appearances, he has scored eight goals and provided four assists. Messi could really get those points towards the end of the season because he has better attacking talent around him (and because he is Messi and not Insigne). Miami is a club with a lack of defense, which could also change during the summer, but there is a reason why the team is now among the contenders to win the league and it is because of one Lionel Messi.
Who even coaches Messi?
After Nevile’s departure, all signs point to Martino coaching the team. The Argentina manager already won the MLS Cup with Atlanta United and also coached Messi between 2013-2016 for the Argentina national team and Barcelona. Despite Martino’s struggles with the Mexican national team, who crashed out in the group stage of the 2022 World Cup, he is still a highly regarded manager who can work wonders with this Miami team.
There are talented players, but they can also look ahead to who the team could sign to fill Martino’s preferred formation. A manager who can be flexible in his line-up, a semblance of a 5-3-2 or 3-4-3 could be best for Miami to make the most of their attacking trident while also ensuring that there is a good defense is to flank them. Defense has been the only constant for the team, with Drake Callender, DeAndre Yedlin, Franco Negri, Serhiy Kryvtsov and Christopher McVey being the only players on the team to record more than 1000 league minutes so far this season. If Martino can find three players to start in the center around them, this team can quickly move up the ranks to become contenders. It is important to remember that Inter Miami was a playoff team last season and with the right leadership can get back there.
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How is Messi registered?
Teams are only allowed to have three Designated Players and in Miami those spots are currently filled by Martinez, Pizzaro and Gregore, so plenty of moves will need to happen before Messi can officially join. Pizzaro almost left the club once after being loaned to Monterrey, but after the Mexican club rejected his purchase option, he returned and plays for the team this season. Bearing in mind that he doesn’t have 600 league minutes and that Messi is likely to step into his role, that makes Pizzaro one of the more expendable players on the roster, but it could be difficult to move him in the summer to get that to open. place.
If that proves too tricky, there’s the option of trying to buy off Gregore’s salary hit, but that could lead to funds Miami needing to make additional purchases, because while the team looks solid on offense and defense, midfielders and depth and friends for Messi are needed.
Are Messi and his friends a good idea?
It’s no secret that Messi would like his former Barcelona teammate Sergio Busquets to join him in making Miami look as close to its Barcelona heyday as possible. Jordi Alaba and Luis Suarez are also names that have been mentioned, but considering what the team needs to win could end up being a similar situation to NBA superstar LeBron James who is de facto general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers. Although all players have their wishes and in some cases it is good to accommodate them, but it is not always in the best interest of the team.
In the case of the Lakers, some of the trades they’ve made to get players James wants to play with aren’t moves that ultimately helped the team, but elsewhere in the NBA, the Milwaukee Bucks helped Giannis Antetokounmpo by adding his brother Thanasis Antetokoumpo to help him settle in. But there are big differences between adding players to help with off-field comfort and adding players to help the team.
If Busquets comes to Miami to help Messi integrate then the move will not be a problem, but if he plays as a lone central defensive midfielder in the heat of Miami in the middle of the summer, things may not go so well. MLS has a long history of eating aging midfielders who struggle with the pace of MLS, even though they are technically superior. Just ask Steven Gerrard and Andrea Pirlo and we’ve even seen Miami struggle with this in the striker position where Gonzalo Higuain had to get into shape before he could figure out the league. When attacking older players, the team should be careful as they will not get much defensive contributions from the forwards.
If the Herons instead target talented young midfielders, not only will they be hungry to support a player they idolize, but younger players will be more affordable to fill out a roster. There will be a lot of work to be done, but everything starts with appointing a coach. With that in hand, that coach can communicate with Messi and ensure that when he arrives the team is able to perform at the best possible level, leaving the current squad at the bottom of the Eastern Conference as a distant memory.
