How Lionel Messi has changed the trajectory of Inter Miami?

The Herons are currently on top of the MLS Eastern Conference.

In Major League Soccer’s 28-year history, there has never been a season quite like the 2023 edition. Sure, there was excitement when the league debuted in 1996 and when David Beckham joined a little over ten years later. However, Lionel Messi joining Inter Miami CF was the biggest worldwide fanfare thing to date in MLS.

For Messi, life in America got off to a great start. On July 21, he made his debut against Cruz Azul in the joint MLS-Liga MX Leagues Cup competition. Coming off the bench in the 54th minute, he scored a stoppage-time winner with an incredible, inch-perfect free kick.

In seven games during the competition, he would go on to score ten goals and dish out an assist, helping Miami win its first trophy in its four-year existence. But in six MLS regular-season games, Messi would only manage one goal and two assists.

His mere-mortal output in domestic league competition led to the Herons’ 2023 campaign coming to an early end. With two games left in the regular season, they were knocked out of the running for a postseason spot.

How Lionel Messi has changed Inter Miami?

Has any team’s fortunes changed as drastically in the middle of the season as Inter Miami’s did once Messi joined the team?

Miami were, well, awful before Messi and his super pals and former Barcelona legends, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, entered the picture. They were offensively ineffective and finished with a league-worst 18 points in 22 MLS games. Only the Colorado Rapids and Toronto FC had fewer goals scored up to that point out of all 29 clubs in the entire MLS, and none had poorer anticipated goals (xG) than Inter Miami’s 0.97 per game.

It would not have been worth imagining that Miami might have competed in the League Cup without Messi. Naturally, after he showed up, nothing remained the same.

Inter Miami went unbeaten from July 21, the day Messi made his Miami debut against Cruz Azul, to September 9, the day he played his last game with Miami (against Sporting Kansas City) before sustaining a hamstring injury with Argentina during World Cup qualifying. Miami won eight and drew four of those twelve games, which included seven in the Leagues Cup, four in the league and one in the U.S. Open Cup. They accumulated 1.59 xG per game and outperformed their opponents 33–14.

With Messi’s addition Inter Miami were victorious in the inaugural iteration of the enlarged Leagues Cup competition, which featured 46 teams.

Messi’s worth is demonstrated by Miami’s significant progress in a way that even his own statistics cannot, in a sport where an individual’s influence can be difficult to measure. Despite this, Messi played in 11 games throughout the course of the 12-game stretch, tallying 11 goals and five assists. Featuring two goals in each of the first three games he started.

Messi contributed directly to goals every 68 minutes on average, which can be defined as a goal or an assist. For comparison, Denis Bouanga of LAFC, the winner of the MLS Golden Boot, scored once every 75 minutes and Luciano Acosta of FC Cincinnati, the team that won the Supporters’ Shield scored once every 103 minutes.

Meanwhile, the addition of Luis Suarez has further made Miami into a dominant side in MLS 2024. They are now top of the Eastern Conference with ten points clear.

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