MIAMI — Imagine being Lionel Messi? Even as a rhetorical question it is beyond all grasp.
You have stacked a World Cup trophy, a prize so small to hold yet so symbolically grand, atop seven Ballon d’Or crowns as global player of the year.
You are the greatest and most popular figure in (easily) the world’s biggest sport.
The sight of you pushing a shopping cart in a Publix grocery store is an instant viral sensation — so astounding is it to witness a “futbol” deity performing mortal chores.
You say everything right, music to ears, at your Sunday introduction by Inter Miami: “I want to thank the people of Miami for all this love and welcome. I am very excited and happy to be in Miami with you. I come here with the desire that I always had to compete, to win. I have no doubt ... that very nice things will happen.”
Ah, but there is chirping. There is a bit of outside doubt among the South Florida adulation And he knows it.
Messi is 36 now. Has he chosen a soft landing in Major League Soccer? Has he retired to Miami even as he signed for two more seasons through 2025?
How good Messi still is — no, how great — is what we will be fascinated to see literally play out as the games begin, as the ceremony turns to soccer.
That starts Friday at DRV PNK Stadium as Inter Miami hosts Mexico’s Cruz Azul in the opener of the inaugural Leagues Cup, a tournament between clubs from MLS and LIGA MX, the top league in Mexico.
Chirping: “As long as he has two legs and and two eyes, he’s just another player,” says Cruz Azul midfielder Erik Lira of Messi.
Even as empty bravado, the words “just another player” attached to Messi in any form seems blasphemous.
Our retort would suggest he might be just another player were those two eyes not able to see a playing field and predict its ebb and flow better than anyone else. And if those two legs were not able to move like that and make such magic.
But what Lira says is what Messi faces now: Younger players who respect his god-in-cleats stature but are out to make a name for themselves against him.
Chirping: “The Saudi Pro League is better than MLS,” said longtime Messi rival Cristiano Ronaldo of Saudi club Al Nassr after Messi signed with Inter Miami.
That plainly is the sound of jealousy. Saudi sportswashing bought Ronaldo for $200 million a year (U.S.), but he has disappeared across the world in an inferior league while his nemesis makes Miami the center of the soccer universe, raises MLS tiers higher in stature and attention, and lifts an entire sport in America.
“The eyes of the world, not just America, are on MLS and on Miami,” says Inter Miami part owner David Beckham, whose three years of perseverance finally landed Messi. “This is a huge moment.”
Inter Miami and its exponentially catapulting fan base will have Messi for at least 15 games the remainder of this season, and likely more.
There are 12 MLS regular-season matches left, and it might end there. Messi (and former Barcelona teammates Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba) join a bad team on an 11-game winless streak, and it might be too late for hope. Inter Miami would need major winning across those dozen games left to climb into the playoff chase.
But Miami’s run in the Leagues Cup could be a deep one, and the club has reached the semifinal of the storied U.S. Open Cup tournament and will face fellow MLS club FC Cincinnati on August 23.
There already are talks about moving the September 27 U.S. Open Cup championship match to Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium if Inter Miami is in it. That’s all Messi and his drawing power.
So is a planned international offseason tour by Inter Miami.
The team and MLS will and should leverage every bit of Messi’s global stature over the next few years.
The window is small. Messi is 36, Busquets 35 and Alba 34.
The Miami Heat had four seasons of LeBron James and won two NBA titles. Inter Miami has has two full seasons of Messi beyond this one to win an MLS championship.
His words echo, and encourage: “I come here with the desire that I always had to compete, to win. I have no doubt ... that very nice things will happen.”
The superstar called “just another player” plays on a plane above all rivals, his only competition the standard he has set for himself, his only remaining motivation to show the world that standard has not diminished.
The words alone still seem hard to believe.
Messi in Miami.
Friday, it begins.
