Inter Miami, Messi and Martino are out: What went wrong and what comes next?

Fireworks shot out from the rafters of Inter Miami’s Chase Stadium on Saturday night, but there was nothing for the home team to celebrate. When the final whistle blew in Fort Lauderdale, Inter Miami had been beaten 3-2 by Atlanta United and eliminated from the MLS playoffs.

Atlanta had taken the decisive Game 3 of the series and will advance to MLS’ Eastern Conference semifinals. The pyrotechnics were an awkward way to end an otherwise successful season for Lionel Messi’s club. Wait. How can Inter Miami’s 2024 be considered a success?

To go out at this stage of the playoffs is an embarrassment for a team whose notoriety has skyrocketed since Messi’s arrival in July of 2023. In a temporary home stadium that has become a fortress for Miami this year, Messi and his teammates were eliminated by an opponent that was mediocre for most of the season.

Atlanta squeaked into the postseason as the ninth seed under the guidance of an interim manager, but have defied the odds and ended what could have been a dream season for Inter Miami. After setting the MLS regular-season points record (74) and claiming the Supporters’ Shield (awarded to the club with the best regular-season record), Miami were, in the minds of many, obligated to win the MLS Cup final at the end of these playoffs on December 7.

So what went wrong? And what does this exit mean for 37-year-old Messi and Miami’s manager Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino?

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The 61-year-old Argentine Martino was forced to tinker with his lineup at the most inopportune moment of the season. The ever-reliable Sergio Busquets, suffering from a chest injury, was benched and Yannick Bright, a ball-winning holding midfielder with polished possession skills, was unavailable due to a muscle injury sustained in Game 2 in Atlanta. Messi stepped up last night, orchestrating the first goal of the game (scored by Matias Rojas) and then, after Atlanta took a 2-1 lead, scoring the equalizer himself, but the visitors’ winner came when midfielder Bartosz Slisz’s powerful header stunned the Chase Stadium crowd with 14 minutes of the 90 to go.

Miami had scored 79 goals during the regular season and routinely dominated possession, but their weaknesses were also there for everyone to see. Atlanta exposed Miami’s high line throughout the series and finished their chances clinically.

Despite their regular-season success, Martino’s side had always been susceptible to the counter-attack and that vulnerability after losing possession has cost them. Martino opted for a 4-3-3 formation on Saturday despite his recent tendency of setting the side up with three central defenders and two attacking wingers.

Six years ago, when Martino led Atlanta to the 2018 MLS Cup title, he did so by pumping the brakes on what had been a prolific scoring side and securing his defense with a five-man back line. But he showed little of that kind of restraint on Saturday. With two 20-goal attackers in Messi and Luis Suárez and the team’s proven ability to create chance after chance, Martino went for the knockout and started with creative midfielder Rojas.

“If there was an important difference between the first and second games relating to tonight, by playing with a back four and deciding to place an additional attacker on the pitch, the opponent was able to run into space, something that we had generally prevented in the first two games,” Martino said.

Additionally, 40-year-old Brad Guzan proved to be the thorn in the side of the MLS Cup favorites. The former Aston Villa and United States goalkeeper was in inspired form throughout the three-game series. His shot-stopping from close range and reflex saves frustrated Miami beyond belief.

“Their goalkeeper was spectacular,” said Miami’s Jordi Alba after the match. “That was the difference in the series. He saved everything and more.” Guzan told Apple TV in a post-match interview that belief, resilience and “some fairy dust in our locker room” led to what will go down as one of the biggest upsets in the short history of MLS.

Miami’s ownership group of David Beckham and brothers Jorge and Jose Mas have spent north of $70million on first-team signings, pushing the MLS salary cap rule to its limits. Messi, Busquets, Suárez and Alba brought their spectacular resumés to MLS with one thing in mind: winning titles. A Leagues Cup trophy in 2023 set the stage for a storybook run this season.

With Martino at the helm, a manager accustomed to the brightest lights in world football having led FC Barcelona and the Argentina and Mexico men’s national teams, Miami had all the tools, including home-field advantage, to win their first MLS Cup. To be out this early is a worst-case scenario for MLS and Apple, the league’s broadcast partner.

“It’s not a success when you lose in the quarterfinal round,” said Martino. “If one thinks about where we were last November, there has been progress for the club, not just the team. If one considers the expectations we had for these playoffs, we’ve come up very short.”

It’s simple to claim the Inter Miami project has failed to deliver. Martino downplayed the Supporters’ Shield when he spoke to The Athletic in August.

“When you win the MLS Cup, you earn that star above the badge,” Martino said. “The day that I’m given a star for winning the Supporters’ Shield, in that case, it’ll be worth it.”

He has a point. In a playoff format, the MLS Cup is the only trophy that matters. But Inter Miami are unlike any club MLS has seen since its inaugural season 28 years ago. Their success won’t be measured based solely on what they do on the pitch. In five years, Miami has gone from a start-up with a handful of eager employees to a global brand with extraordinary reach. Messi will forever be linked to this club, a reality that will outweigh any trophy he may win in the U.S.

An MLS Cup will never define Messi’s legacy — nothing he does while in Miami’s pink and black uniform will dent or strengthen the career of the sport’s greatest player. As Beckham said in 2023, Inter Miami succeeded when they signed Messi.

Beckham and Messi are linked in more ways than one. The former England captain didn’t win an MLS Cup until his fifth year in the league, following two loan spells with AC Milan. Beckham’s LA Galaxy followed up that 2011 triumph with another MLS Cup the following year but it’s the designated player rule that he is remembered for in the United States.

Messi, an eight-time Ballon d’Or winner and World Cup hero for Argentina’s triumphant side in 2022, is also playing in MLS for reasons that go far beyond the touchline. Miami signed him to change the trajectory of American soccer, to become an icon in a country that still turns its back on the global game.

The marketing machine that Messi commands has made inroads in a nation cluttered with celebrity and mainstream sports. The 2024 season began with a global tour in Central America, Asia and the Middle East. In February, Inter Miami chief business officer Xavier Asensi said the club had achieved revenue that was more than the preseason figures of Europe’s biggest clubs, with estimates near $20million for a U.S. preseason tour.

Internationally, the Inter Miami project has been a smashing success, but in America, the Messi phenomenon has been normalized. It was almost unbelievable to suggest he would ever come to MLS. Now, after just one and a half seasons, MLS fans complain of Messi fatigue.

On Friday, with Miami facing elimination, there was one lone television camera at their pre-game media availability.

Other than the Diario Olé newspaper from Argentina, the global press, which had landed in Fort Lauderdale in hordes a year ago, was nowhere to be found. Inter Miami are covered by a dedicated group of local reporters, but on some days, there are no more than two or three journalists at the training facility. It doesn’t help that Messi has given just one press conference (in August of 2023) since arriving.

He has been a model teammate and a joy to watch, but his unwillingness to talk to the press has lessened his impact stateside. When Messi speaks, the world listens. When he doesn’t engage with the press in a country whose media landscape is dominated by sports talk shows that discuss anything but soccer, the silence, as they say, can be deafening.

In late October, Messi spoke to journalist Fabrizio Romano. He touched on Inter Miami’s ambitions. “The club doesn’t set any limits for itself,” Messi said. “The club’s philosophy is to always go for more and that’s been proven with what they’ve achieved so far. They want to continue to grow within MLS, and why not, globally as well.”

Thank you for all the love and support this season 💗🖤 pic.twitter.com/J6dYyAtGu8

— Inter Miami CF (@InterMiamiCF) November 10, 2024

Messi also said his desired superpower would be invisibility. One can empathize with somebody whose life has been anything but private for more than 20 years. In Fort Lauderdale, thousands of miles away from the football paparazzi that followed him in Barcelona and Paris, after his move to PSG, for years, Messi has as normal a life as he has ever had. But MLS cannot afford for him to go unnoticed in America.

This playoff loss against Atlanta proved big moments can be fleeting. It’s no secret Messi, who will turn 38 next June, is nearing the end of his illustrious career. He hasn’t ruled out playing at the 2026 World Cup, which will be held in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Messi’s contract with Inter Miami runs through the 2025 MLS season, a year before that World Cup and a year before the club’s new Miami-based stadium opens.

With that in mind, Miami’s early elimination puts additional pressure on the club’s owners to maximize Messi’s talent and his massive brand appeal. The clock, seemingly, is running out. But in speaking to reporters after the shock loss, Martino tempered any concerns about Messi’s timetable in MLS. “Honestly, I don’t know how limited (his time here) is,” said Martino. “Time passes and clearly it’s on the horizon, but I wouldn’t say that it’s coming anytime soon.”

MLS and Messi’s millions of fans can breathe easier. Perhaps Messi will still be wearing pink in 2026. Inter Miami, though, have been busy reshaping the sporting department. In June, the club named former Arsenal director of football Raul Sanllehi as president of football operations. Sanllehi has said that he isn’t replacing current sporting director Chris Henderson, but Henderson’s time in Miami, unlike Messi’s, is nearing its end. Change is coming.

Martino came to the Miami job after a disastrous World Cup with Mexico in 2022. It might sound dramatic but returning to MLS was his moment for redemption. At a club that wants to set a standard, his seat has naturally gotten warmer.

On Saturday, Martino reiterated his side had not met the club’s ambitious expectations — yet he painted a promising picture of where the project stands amid the pain of the night’s result.

“If you look at how this club started, the progress made is noteworthy,” he said. “From our final match of the season last October to tonight’s souring loss in the playoffs, it’s clear that the club’s objectives have changed and I don’t think that the club has any reason to not go for it next season. Everything that has happened this year, both the good and the bad, has been better than anything that has taken place during the club’s existence.”

The MLS playoffs will continue without Messi and, for a league that needs as much attention as it can get, Saturday’s outcome in Fort Lauderdale is deflating.

But this is soccer in America. There’s a long way to go towards relevance.

(Top photo: Chris Arjoon/AFP via Getty Images)