Tournament awards …
First, the officials get their medals, and the crowd takes one last chance to register its disapproval.
Callender wins best goalkeeper. The crowd chants “Pan-ic-co! Pan-ic-co!”
And the top scorer and best player awards go to … a very confused Lionel Messi, who didn’t seem to realize that he actually needed to grab both trophies.
With that, it’s time to get some sleep. Barely six hours until we have another tournament final. Hope it’s as entertaining as this one.
Good night to all.
Messi hugs both Beckhams. This is the biggest celebration of star power in Nashville that doesn’t involve guitars and songs about trucks. (I kid, country music fans.)
Tata Martino, the architect of Atlanta United’s early success in MLS, gets his turn being interviewed via translation. He doesn’t have much to say, but he lets on that he thought a tie was a fair result, and then it was up to the team keeping composure in penalties.
To recap: That was 10-9! The players made 19 of 22 penalties, and the last one that missed was the keeper.
Hey, Peter Oh’s checking in by email: “gotta hand it to Messi. Just a couple of weeks into his new gig and already he’s a La Leagues legend.”
Ow. That one’s painful.
The Apple TV crew claims this is Messi’s 44th trophy, more than any other player. I have no idea how they’ve computed that. Do preseason tournaments count? SuperCups? I don’t know. But he’s at least 42 ahead of me. (U-12 league championship, then a division championship in our indoor league that unfortunately got us promoted to the top flight. Ouch.)
Drake Callender is getting his just due with a quickly but carefully compiled highlight reel. Several big saves through the game, then two saves in PKs, the clinching one coming right after he took his own penalty with more aplomb than some of the world’s best players.
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They’re tossing Messi in the air. They should give Callender some flight time as well. What a performance from the young keeper.
David Beckham appears to be in tears as he hugs his wife. That’s his first trophy as a co-owner.
Inter Miami win the Leagues Cup
Callender saves it from his opposite number.
Messi has another trophy.
What a game.
PKs: Inter 10-9 Nashville (Callender converts)
Oh my. The keeper confidently rips his shot into the roof of the net.
PKs: Inter 9-9 Nashville (Shaffelburg converts)
Keeper sent the wrong way. And now he must shoot.
PKs: Inter 9-8 Nashville (Yedlin converts)
The veteran of MLS and the Premier League rips it into the side netting.
PKs: Inter 8-8 Nashville (Davis converts)
You could tell from his expression. He just blasts it to Callender’s left.
That’s nine shots per team. We’re one away from having the keepers shoot.
PKs: Inter 8-7 Nashville (Ruiz converts)
Stutter-step, Panicco goes left, then right, and Ruiz goes the other way.
PKs: Inter 7-7 Nashville (MacNaughton converts)
Down the middle.
PKs: Inter 7-6 Nashville (Gomez converts)
Panicco moves early, Gomez shoots down the middle.
PKs: Inter 6-6 Nashville (Lovitz converts)
Callender starts to lean to his left, and Lovitz blasts it into the other upper corner.
PKs: Inter 6-5 Nashville (Alba converts)
Slow run-up, and Panicco again goes a little early. Alba, whom the announcers tell us has never taken a kick in a PK shootout, easily finishes.
PKs: Inter 5-5 Nashville (Moore converts)
Shaq slams it into the net. Same spot.
PKs: Inter 5-4 Nashville (Krvytsov converts)
The Ukrainian defender rips it into the upper right corner.
PKs: Inter 4-4 Nashville (Surridge converts)
I think the new guy is doing just fine for Nashville. Composed, powerful shot.
That’s the scheduled five. We kick on.
PKs: Inter 4-3 Nashville (Panicco saves Ulloa shot)
HUGE SAVE! Panicco read it like high school kids reading The Catcher in the Rye, and he smashes it away.
PKs: Inter 4-3 Nashville (Zimmerman converts)
The Nashville captain derisively smashes the ball straight down the middle as if daring Callender to stay there. Which he didn’t.
PKs: Inter 4-2 Nashville (Miller converts)
Oh, just barely! Panicco guessed correctly and got his hand within a ball’s width of the post. Miller squeezed it through.
PKs: Inter 3-2 Nashville (Godoy converts)
Hard shot, keeper sent the wrong way.
PKs: Inter 3-1 Nashville (Campana converts)
“I’m not going the wrong way! I’m not going the wrong way!” You can practically hear Panicco saying that.
“You’re going the wrong way,” Campana says. Goal.
PKs: Inter 2-1 Nashville (Callender saves Leal shot)
Leal went straight up the middle. Callender left enough of his legs there to block the shot.
Advantage Inter.
PKs: Inter 2-1 Nashville (Busquets converts)
Panicco started going to his right well before Busquets got to the ball. Wide open net for the legend.
PKs: Inter 1-1 Nashville (Makhtar converts)
Nothing Callender could do about that one. Went the wrong way, and Makhtar’s shot had some juice.
PKs: Inter 1-0 Nashville (Messi converts)
Just sends the keeper the wrong way and passes it into the net. Easy.
I think I owe Drake Callender an apology. I thought the Miami keeper, in his second year as a starter, looked shaky in the first half. That’s three immense saves.
Messi and Zimmerman meet with the referee crew to call coin flips. Inter will shoot first, and they’re facing Nashville’s loudest supporters section. I guess Messi didn’t win that coin flip …
End regulation: Nashville 1-1 Inter Miami
Miss of the game! Miami counter brilliantly, and Campana is one-on-one with Panicco! He chips. He trips Shaq Moore, the only defender in the vicinity, but that turns into a disadvantage because he wastes just a few microseconds, and then when he catches up to his own shot as it bounces wide, he can’t direct it in.
Both teams had a huge chance to win in the last 20 seconds.
But we’re off to PKs.
SAVE OF THE GAME
Point-blank range – Callender on Surridge from the corner …
and then …
90 mins +2: SAVE by Callender on a roof-bound shot from Mukhtar at a difficult angle. Shaffelburg helped to set it up.
Another good play by the Inter keeper. Another Nashville corner.
90 mins: Free kick is headed away. Three minutes of stoppage time to be played.
Updated
89 mins: Inter pass it around like a basketball team holding for the last shot. Busquets rolls it backward to Messi. But they lose it, and Nashville plays ahead to Mukhtar, who’s off to the races! Ulloa gets just a bit of contact, and Mukhtar goes to the ground – rather easily, perhaps, but it’s a by-the-book foul. And a yellow card.
Free kick Nashville from 35 …
87 mins: “Such a good foul from Gomez,” Taylor Twellman says as the Inter midfielder bodyslams Shaffelburg. No card, oddly. That’s called stopping a promising attack (SPA).
Nashville play forward and cross from the left, but Callender handles it easily.
85 mins: Alba to Messi, intercepted by Zimmerman. This Nashville defense is no pushover.
84 mins: And Mukhtar’s free kick is … wide by a couple of feet. Not a bad effort there.
83 mins: Mukhtar gets the ball in the center channel, and two defenders are ill-placed to deal with him. Alba can’t get him, and Gomez winds up slamming into the MVP to knock him down and give Nashville a free kick from 25.
81 mins: Taylor is dinged up, just in time to be subbed out. Ruiz is in for Inter. Also, Victor Ulloa replaces Arroyo.
And now Nashvile makes a change – Alex Muyl is off, and Randall Leal makes a triumphant return from injury.
77 mins: SAVE by the sprawling Callender on Surridge, keeping Inter level at 1-1.
Corner for Nashville. Can they do it again? No – Callender makes a confident catch and launches the counter.
Well done by the Inter keeper, whose name appeared on the screen a few minutes ago with the dreaded letters “OG” next to them, though no official change has been made on the Cup’s site. For now, we’ll say that goal belongs to Picault.
74 mins: I want to look for photos, but I see mail in my inbox. It says … thanks for the photo contributions. Got it.
71 mins: OFF THE POST! Messi somehow gets space, running diagonally into the center channel. He puts out an arm to stop the recovering McCarty and unleashes a left-footed shot that hits the rifht post.
That’s all for McCarty tonight. Sean Davis is in. So is Jacob Shaffelburg, who had started earlier in this tournament but had a bit of an injury concern. The goal scorer, Picault, is out.
There is no extra time. We would go straight to what IFAB used to call “kicks from the mark.”
69 mins: Lovitz has been superb for Nashville tonight, but that was an unnecessary reckless slide to get Taylor. He’s lucky Taylor isn’t a bigger star, or maybe he’d have a yellow card, too.
Nashville quickly gain possession and send a through ball for Makhtar, but he’s offside. Again.
67 mins: MacNaughton brings out the throw-in cannon for Nashville again, sending the ball on a low arc toward his defensive partner Zimmerman on what’s essentially a set piece. Inter clear, but only just, and we end up with Shaq Moore shooting from 20. Didn’t we have a possession that ended on a Shaq Moore shot in the first half? Not idea either time.
Two subs for Inter, most notable in that Josef Martinez is departing. So will Cremaschi. On: Diego Gomez and Campana.
65 mins: Inter don’t press the whole game by any means, but when they do, they bring it. Nashville brilliantly break through.
Mailbag: “Hello from a Metro North train! Matan here. My dad was born in Argentina and lives in Miami. I doubt he could have named a single MLS player pre-Messi, but he has watched every minute since his arrival. Surely this pace isn’t sustainable? Is there any comparable for a player having this type of impact after joining a league? In fairness I suspect Tata Martino was not a small upgrade on Phil Neville, so this could be a confounding variable.”
You could indeed argue that Martino is worth many points in his own right.
Messi won’t score 10 goals every seven games. But could he stay on a goal-a-game pace? Yeah, maybe.
62 mins: Are they laughing at Messi? He gets a free kick from about 40 and hits it about 70. He has a wry smile, the same kind that earned Megan Rapinoe a bunch of barbs from people who already hated Megan Rapinoe, as the crowd roars its approval. Or maybe relief.
60 mins: Inter tentatively move forward, connecting many passes together but putting nothing in a dangerous area.
No subs yet.
GOAL! Nashville 1-1 Inter Miami (Picault 58)
The corner is flicked on from Surridge, and Picault throws his body downward to head it sideways from 5 yards out. It pings off a defender and crosses the line.
Game on.
57 mins: Corner for Nashville, and the crowd is into it, and …
55 mins: CHANCE of sorts for the 18-year-old Benjamin Cremaschi. Maybe he was shooting, maybe he was crossing. Either way, it barely misses the far post. Nearly 2-0 for Inter.
54 mins: Busquets and Godoy both decide to slide in the same direction to get the ball. Which player do you suppose was whistled for a foul and got a card? Ismail Elfath made it clear early in this game that he was going to protect the stars, and that’s exactly what he’s doing. I normally defend referees – I do it myself, and it’s difficult – but that’s a bit obvious.
53 mins: Nashville go over the top to Mukhtar, but the reigning MVP takes off a split-second too soon, so he’s off. Worse, he takes a bit of contact before the whistle stops play.
50 mins: Nice buildup on the left to Jordi Alba, and replay shows that he timed his run perfectly. Crosses, and Martinez maybe should’ve done better with that for Inter. Messi seems to be of that opinion as well. Martinez, an MVP not long ago, doesn’t have to listen to me. But he might need to listen to that other guy.
Updated
49 mins: Picault shoots for Nashville. It lands in Memphis.
47 mins: We’re back. Neither side has come out particularly energized.
I’ve set my alarm for 5:55 a.m. Eastern. That’s less than eight hours. TV programming people and soccer organizers should be nicer to us old guys.
Gary Smith, Nashville coach, in his halftime interview: “I think we’re in this game. … The belief and the home passion might see us back into this game.”
Inter Miami taking their time returning to the field. Must have gotten stuck in traffic.
Stats shown on Apple TV at the half say Nashville had the better of expected goals, 0.30 to 0.06.
I think the xG stat needs a Messi adjustment. For mere mortals, the xG on that shot was probably 0.05 or less. For Messi? Practically routine.
Halftime: Nashville 0-1 Inter Miami
An entertaining first half, with Inter Miami’s defense looking quite vulnerable. But they have this player you might have heard of, and he scored yet another wonder goal. That’s the difference right now.
45 mins +1: Fafa Picault can now tell his grandkids that he won the ball from Messi with a picture-perfect slide tackle. Congratulations.
We don’t yet know how much stoppage time we’ll … oh … that’s it. One minute.
44 mins: A stern Inter press, with Messi himself forcing the pace to increase. Nashville work it forward, but it’s tricky.
Shaq Moore does well taking it up the right flank and centering, but Inter clear.
42 mins: Messi takes it 40 yards out and very quickly makes it 30. But he pauses his progress and switches it to the left side. The ball is returned to Messi’s flank, but Lovitz, the Nashville left back who is having a terrific half, alertly heads it back to his keeper.
41 mins: Cross, header, header, header, header … OK, maybe not that many, but Nashville has the ball in a dangerous spot for quite a few seconds until the prodigal Alba clears.
39 mins: Yedlin loses the ball and lunges to try to get it back, but he succeeds only in catching McCarty. Hundreds upon hundreds of games of MLS experience in that tangle. Free kick.
Nashville work it forward, and Lovitz draws a corner by banging it off Yedlin.
35 mins: Before the corner from Mukhtar, Jordi Alba gets a bit of assistance from the trainer and then seems annoyed that he has to go off the field.
Muhktar’s corners fly into the box with the downward spin of a volleyball jump serve. I’d be terrified if I had to defend against that.
A tumble just outside the Inter box draws some gesticulating from players and expectant noises from the crowd, but the whistle is not sounded.
34 mins: Superb buildup from Miami, with passes weaving back and forth from the center to the left and back again. It winds up in the air for Muyl, whose header slams into Kamal Miller, who seems bemused as it flies out for a corner.
33 mins: Inter, though, have asserted some control over the midfield.
As I type, they turn over the ball.
30 mins: Oh, but lest we forget – this Inter Miami defense looks a bit soft this evening. Good ball in to Mukhtar forces yet another clumsy-looking clearance from Callender, who has been playing with fire for much of the half.
See for yourself …
🇦🇷🐐 Messi is INEVITABLE! A fantastic goal by the number 10 in the Leagues Cup final! 🏆#InterMiamiCF | #Messi𓃵 pic.twitter.com/Bf9Jo13l2V
— beIN SPORTS USA (@beINSPORTSUSA) August 20, 2023
Panicco’s underdog story can’t top Messi’s saga of triumph in this tournament.
GOAL! Nashville 0-1 Inter Miami (Messi 23)
Are you kidding me?
It’s just a stray ball at the top of the box. But he shifts the ball a bit and lets fly through FIVE yellow defenders, and it’s placed with power and precision in the upper left corner.
TEN goals in seven games.
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21 mins: SAVE BY PANICCO off a well-struck shot by Miami’s man from Finland, Robert Taylor. My, that had some steam.
20 mins: This is a crackling atmosphere in Nashville. Sheer thunder while the ball pings around midfield.
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17 mins: Nashville corner kick, and Callender punches just over the heads of a gaggle of yellow-shirted foes.
Now a very long throw-in from MacNaughton, who finds his fellow Nashville center back Zimmerman on the doorstep of the Miami goal. But the captain’s header is well-saved by Callender.
16 mins: More possession for Nashville.
I haven’t heard from the usual commenters (Mary Waltz? Peter Oh?). Resting up for that other tournament final in 8 1/2 hours?
15 mins: Nashville enjoy a nice kickabout in their own half. They spring forward to Mukhtar, but the MVP is cleanly stripped by Arroyo.
13 mins: More activity for Krvvtsov, who wins the ball deep in his own half but then gives it away to Nashville for a possession that ends unlike what they would’ve surely preferred, a long-range rip from Shaq Moore.
12 mins: Nice job by the Ukrainian Krvvtsov to change the point of attack and find Alba rushing up from his left back post, but he’s dispossessed.
10 mins: Busquets on it now, but Nashville have all of their players and the ghosts of country music legends past behind the ball, and even the longtime Barcelona stalwart cannot find a way through.
8 mins: Messi tries a through ball. Not quite there.
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7 mins: Nashville go direct, and Callender heads directly out of his goal to play it awkwardly 25 yards from goal. The Inter defense is not yet up to the task here.
5 mins: Inter attack. The ball goes left to Alba, whose cross is easily claimed by the keeper Panicco.
Back the other way, Nashville refuse to pass to Lovitz, who has no one within 20 yards of him in any direction and is waving his arms wildly, but that’s because they’re having a promising attack on the other side of the field. Mukhtar tries to cut the ball back after reaching the end line, but a few players in pink are there to clear the danger.
Have we mentioned Inter wear pink?
3 mins: Nashville with a nice bit of pressure, forcing a nervy backpass to Callender that the keeper doesn’t clear particularly well.
Then suddenly – I’ve never seen a ref this mad. Ismail Elfath is yelling and gesturing at Godoy for some unnecessary but rather pointless contact against an Inter Miami player. Why would he be so …
… oh, it’s Messi. That’s why he’s so mad.
1 min: Busquets passes the ball …
…
…
…
…
… and McCarty clips his leg.
(He was a tad late. Foul.)
Kickoff: We’re already 10 seconds in, and this Messi guy hasn’t scored yet. Overrated.
Our broadcasters think Nashville will be in a 4-4-2, not a 4-3-3, with Picault at left midfield.
Inter will be in a 4-3-3.
I really wish I could raid the pantry and not gain weight.
Kickoff … any … second … now …
Colbie Caillat, who had a couple of hits as a young prodigy 15 years ago, does a nice rendition of the national anthem accompanied by someone picking a nylon-stringed guitar. Very Nashville. I like it.
Caillat’s father, Ken, survived one of the most California experiences ever, engineering the Fleetwood Mac album Rumours while the band members all broke up and hooked up around him.
We may at last play a soccer game …
Updated
Witherspoon brings out the game ball. We don’t get that confirmed for a while because commentators gotta commentate. (Are we sure the Red Bulls aren’t playing and handing out their sponsors’ refreshments? These folks are talking as if they’re trying to recite the entirety of Hamlet in 20 minutes.)
“Kickoff next,” we hear. But a clock says we still have 7:15 to go.
More celebrities …
David Beckham is a co-owner of Inter Miami. But Nashville SC has quite a few celebrity owners as well, and we’ve already seen a pregame interview with Giannis Antetokounmpo, who is in the ownership group along with Derrick Henry.
Still, as someone who wrote a history of this league several years ago, I was not prepared to see MLS commissioner Don Garber chatting with Nashville co-owner Reese Witherspoon.
Coincidentally, she’s on a show that airs on Apple TV, which is the service beaming this game to everyone’s screens tonight.
Questions
First: What’s the future of this tournament? You don’t get a Messi boost every year. Is it something that takes place during big events, as it did this year during the Women’s World Cup? Should it replace the sprawling MLS playoffs, which we could trim down to a simple matchup of East winner vs. West winner?
Second: Is Messi too good? Is he exposing weakness in MLS defenses? None of the other superstars to grace the league have had quite the same immediate impact, but is Messi just that much better than Beckham or Donadoni at the same stage of their careers? Among the many media outlets dealing with this question: Alexi Lalas wrestled with it on a recent podcast, and it made its way to the satirical site The Onion.
Nashville lineup
But what of the team that doesn’t have a bunch of trio of players who each have several hundred appearances for Barcelona?
Like Inter Miami, Nashville SC is one of the more recent Major League Soccer clubs. Their first game was Feb. 28, 2020. You may recall a global event that may have halted their momentum.
But fans have embraced this team since then. Last year, their average attendance was 27,554, fourth in the league behind Atlanta, Charlotte and Seattle.
And they have a superstar to watch. Hany Mukhtar is the reigning MVP, and he could be on his way to winning it again. He leads MLS in league play with 13 goals. TransferMarkt.com estimates his transfer value at €12m ($13m) and cites a recent unspecified-but-you-know-it’s-big offer from Qatar.
The same site gives Messi’s value as €35m, which translates to dollars as “infinity.”
Nashville also has made a big signing this summer – Sam Surridge, who banged around the Championship (England, not USL) for a while and then went up to the Premier League with Nottingham Forest. He scored three goals in three sub appearances in this tournament and makes his first start tonight.
The road to this stage has been a winding one, and it’s why we have an intriguing selection dilemma in goal. Joe Willis, the usual starter, safely guided Nashville to a 2-1 win in group play against Colorado. Then coach Gary Smith brought in Elliot Panicco, a 26-year-old Kentucky-born keeper who has spent most of his pro career on the bench or on loan, and he was beaten soundly in a 4-3 loss to Toluca. But Smith called him for penalty kicks in Nashville’s Round of 32 win and did it again in the next round against Club America after Surridge scored in the ninth minute of stoppage time. Panicco started the next two games and posted clean sheets against Minnesota and Monterrey.
Surridge and Fafa Picault came in off the bench to score the goals in the semifinal against Monterrey, the last Mexican club standing, to advance to tonight’s game.
Tonight’s lineup has a couple of changes from that semifinal win, but they’ll start once again with …
GK: Elliot Panicco.
D: Daniel Lovitz, Lukas MacNaughton, Walker Zimmerman, Shaq Moore. The backline is unchanged. Zimmerman, the captain, is a two-time MLS Defender of the Year who started at center back for the US in the 2022 World Cup. Moore made a couple of substitute appearances at the World Cup, while Lovitz earned some US caps a few years ago. MacNaughton comes from Canada, where he worked his way through that country’s pro leagues before signing with Toronto FC.
M: Anibal Godoy, Dax McCarty, Alex Muyl. McCarty is in his 18th MLS season but is still a spry 36 years old. Godoy, from Panama, is also beyond 30. Muyl, a New Yorker, joined Nashville during the 2020 season. Canadian Jacob Shaffelburg drops out of the lineup (update: he’s injured) as they will apparently shift to a 4-3-3.
F: Sam Surridge, Hany Mukhtar, Fafa Picault. The scorers from the semifinal have been promoted from the subs’ bench to the starting XI. Surridge banged around in the Championship (England, not USL) for a while before moving up to the Premier League with Nottingham Forest. He moved to Nashville just last month. Picault had a couple of caps with the US but has switched his nationality to Haiti.
Moving to the bench: Teal Bunbury, once a phenom who spurned Canada for the US.
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Inter Miami lineup
July 15: Miami’s starters in 3-0 loss to St. Louis were Drake Callender in goal, Noah Allen, Kamal Miller, Sergii Krvvtsov and Ian Fray across the back, Dixon Arroyo anchoring the midfield behind Lawson Sunderland and Benjamin Cremaschi, Robbie Robinson on the left wing, Robert Taylor on the right, and Josef Martinez as the sole forward.
Tonight, unchanged from the semifinal but changed quite a bit from a month ago …
GK: Drake Callender. The former Univ. of California player is in his second year as the starter.
D: Jordi Alba, Kamal Miller, Sergii Krvvtsov, DeAndre Yedlin. Miller (Canada) is the youngest player on the line at age 26; everyone else is at least 30, including Ukrainian national teamer and longtime Shakhtar player Krvvtsov and the lone US player, former Newcastle United fullback Yedlin.
M: Benjamin Cremaschi, Sergio Busquets, Dixon Arroyo. The 18-year-old Cremaschi is in his first year at senior level, and the Ecuadorian Arroyo played more than a decade in his home country.
F: Robert Taylor, Josef Martinez, Lionel Messi. One of these players is from Finland. No, not that last one. Nor the second. Before Messi’s arrival, Martinez’s salary was the sixth-highest in the league. The Venezuelan scored 98 goals in 131 league games with Atlanta United, winning MVP honors in that club’s 2018 championship season. He has since set a record for reaching 100 goals in the league faster than any player ever has.
Third place!
The Sweden of the Leagues Cup is Philadelphia, which just defeated Monterrey 3-0. The Union had a bit more incentive because they could earn a berth in the Concacaf Champions Cup, while Monterrey had already punched their tickets.
Captain Bedoya is back & better than ever, scoring his 2nd goal in @LeaguesCup play straight off the bench 💪
— Philadelphia Union (@PhilaUnion) August 19, 2023
Watch with #MLSSeasonPass on @AppleTV: https://t.co/vDub6GECMl#DOOP | #PHIvMTY 3-0 pic.twitter.com/X2UXJ4NXkn
Up for the Cup?
Welcome … to the Leagues Cup final!
The what?
The Leagues Cup is an odd competition borne out of the fact that putting a US team of some kind against a Mexican team of some kind is often an excuse to print money. That hasn’t been borne out through all of the games so far, but attendance got a bit of a boost when Inter Miami took advantage of its extensive scouting network to sign a heretofore unknown Argentinian player who used to play for a couple of obscure clubs in Spain and France.
OK, yes, they signed Lionel Messi. And whatever this competition was intended to be has been overshadowed in a way that MLS surely won’t mind.
This has been Messi’s tournament.
Six games. Nine goals. Some of them spectacular even by his standard.
MLS has signed world-class and world-famous players before. Roberto Donadoni was here in Year 1 (1996), then went back to Italy. Lothar Matthäus and Hristo Stoichkov were in MLS at the turn of the century, with the latter taking it a bit more seriously than the former.
And then, in 2007, came David Beckham, still young and viable enough that he would go to Milan on loan from Los Angeles and finish out his career at Paris St. Germain.
Beckham continues to play a big part in adding some glamour to the league. Most notably, he’s a part-owner of Inter Miami.
Which is the club that signed Lionel Messi.
And Sergio Busquets.
And Jordi Alba.
All of which might explain why a last-place team has, during this hiatus in league play, advanced to the final of the Leagues Cup.
And why Nashville, already the home of a well-supported MLS club, has seen ticket prices going past $10,000 for this final.
Beau will be here shortly.
