All eyes on Lionel Messi, Inter Miami as MLS’s 29th season kicks off

Doug McIntyre

Soccer Journalist

The new Major League Soccer season begins on Wednesday night with a single game between — surprise! — Lionel Messi’s star-studded Inter Miami and Real Salt Lake in South Florida.

Messi is clearly MLS’s main attraction heading into the first full year of the GOAT’s stateside stay.

And after making a splash beyond MLS commissioner Don Garber’s wildest dreams last season when, just six months after leading Argentina to the 2022 FIFA World Cup title, Messi’s string of spectacular goals and assists dominated social media timelines and helped the Herons win the inaugural Leagues Cup, soccer fans everywhere are wondering what the living legend does for an encore in Year 2.

Despite missing the playoffs last season, Inter Miami is the bookies’ pick to hoist the 2024 MLS Cup. That’s the case even after a whirlwind preseason tour that took the Herons around the globe but produced just one win in seven games.

“It’s a work in progress,” Herons goalkeeper Drake Callender told FOX Sports after Miami played to a 1-1 tie with Argentina’s Newell’s Old Boys in its final tuneup. “Once the season starts, we have to be a lot sharper and on the same page in how we defend.”

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They also have to keep Messi healthy. As unstoppable as the 36-year-old was after his arrival, he and Inter Miami eventually fell back to earth down the stretch after injuries forced Messi to miss several crucial matches. The club that sat dead last in the MLS standings when Messi announced his decision to join the Herons ended up finishing 27th among the circuit’s 29 teams.

Messi won both the Ballon d’Or and FIFA Best Men’s Player award for 2023 anyway. But he has been nursing a persistent adductor ailment during early 2024, a problem serious enough that he played sparingly during the preseason. Messi even sat out an exhibition in Hong Kong entirely, causing a literal international incident for which he has since had to publicly apologized.

Still, Miami’s status as MLS Cup favorites this season is also somewhat understandable. In addition to having the best player ever, Tara Martino’s team added Uruguayan striker Luis Suárez this winter to a squad that already featured two other former FC Barcelona standouts in Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets.

“Starting the year with good competition is in the long run going to help us,” Callender insisted when asked if the 24,000-mile preseason jaunt has left the Herons exhausted before the MLS campaign even gets underway. “We may have had some adversity during the tour, but I think it’s good preparation for what we’re going to experience during the year.”

Although Suárez, 37, scored just once during the preseason and has been limited by a sore knee, Callender isn’t worried about that, either. “Any time a player joins a new team, it takes a little time to mesh,” the U.S. men’s national team backstop said of Suárez, who lit up the Brazilian league before rejoining Alba, Busquets and Messi in Miami. “It’s early. He knows how to score.”

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Defending is probably the bigger concern for Martino’s side. To free up roster space and salary budget under league rules, the Herons were forced to offload several proven veterans this offseason. Stout Canadian center back Kamal Miller was traded to the Portland Timbers last month. On Monday, midfield destroyer Gregore was transferred to Botafogo in his native Brazil.

Then there’s the fact that Messi, Suárez, Callender and other key contributors could miss several weeks of MLS games while representing their countries at the Copa América this summer. It also remains to be seen how Messi and his fellow 30-somethings will handle a full season of the notoriously grueling travel in MLS, a league governed by rules designed to promote parity between its clubs.

Add it all up, and the the truth is that nobody really knows if Inter Miami will finish first, last or somewhere in between in 2024. What’s indisputable is that Inter Miami matches will continue to be destination viewing regardless of Year 2 of the Messi Experiment ultimately shakes out.

“His arrival put the eyes of the world on MLS,” MLS VP Camilo Durana, who manages the league’s landmark, $2.5 billion streaming deal with Apple TV, said of Messi in an interview with FOX Sports. “From an MLS Season Pass perspective, we are able to see how often the first game people view is an Inter Miami game. It’s contributed an enormous amount to subscriptions, not just in the United States, but around the globe.

“We’re thrilled that Messi chose to continue his career in Major League Soccer,” Durana added. “We’re learning about the enormous audience he brings, what they’re looking for and how we can deliver that to them while exposing them to everything else about MLS and the other amazing players we have.”

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.