Messi didn’t come to North America to change the game

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Lionel Messi and his backup band, Inter Miami, got some fabulous news this week. They missed the Major League Soccer playoffs.

Messi tried his best, but his new team was so epically terrible before he arrived that nothing could solve this future Netflix documentary’s third-act problems. Guess that means it will have to shoot two seasons.

But think of the positives. Had they made it, Messi would be in New Jersey right now, getting ready to play the New York Red Bulls in a cold-weather game whose result no one cares about.

Instead, he’s headed overseas to play for cash money in a warm-weather game whose result no one cares about.

Immediately upon learning – and I mean instantaneously – that Miami was definitively out of the post-season, the team announced Messi would join it for two friendly games in Qingdao and Chengdu, China.

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Barnstorming isn’t news. Every big club in the world does it. The surest way to know you’ve arrived in global soccer isn’t winning titles. It’s when some oil sheikh will pay you seven or eight figures to show up for an afternoon of grip-and-grin at the palace. Messi – so brilliant, so inoffensive – is the king of this grift.

What’s news is the timing. Inter Miami will be freelancing in China while the first round of the MLS playoffs is going on.

In any serious league, the merest suggestion would get you laughed out of the board of directors meeting. Sure, the New York Yankees could be in London right now doing a battle of the network stars against former members of Arsenal football club and making a lot of money doing it. But Major League Baseball does not compete against Major League Baseball because they all work for Major League Baseball. Those basic rules apparently do not apply to Miami or Messi.

“This will be a great opportunity to continue building on our 2023 campaign,” Miami’s sporting director said in a statement.

By that logic, no team should ever stop playing. Go directly from league play, to playing other leagues, to playing national teams and so on. Eventually, you’re playing in parks against whoever shows up.

Thus, Miami isn’t greedy. It is just industrious.

The most obvious effect is how this makes MLS look: ridiculous.

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MLS always plays one of two roles in these efforts to buy the top talent in the world – as either a fool who overpaid for a dud (Toronto FC is a main offender), or as the taken-advantage-of boyfriend whose partner runs around on them.

There’s a wonderful moment in the recent documentary about David Beckham – Miami’s part owner and Messi’s boss – where he talks about his commitment to the L.A. Galaxy. Having arrived at low ebb back in 2007, Beckham soon decided that he’d made a mistake. There was at least one major European team (AC Milan) he could use to leverage himself onto the England national team.

“But I never wanted to leave L.A.,” Beckham says with the deep solemnity of someone telling an important truth.

“Well,” his interviewer says. “Except for that time you tried to stay in Milan.”

Having only just shown up, Beckham tried to force a move to Italy. MLS didn’t stare him down. Former MLSE boss Tim Leiweke – then the showrunner at the Galaxy – did that dirty work. Beckham blinked. He stayed in MLS for six more years, winning a championship.

How much did that major chunk of his athletic life figure in the story? The Beckham documentary is nearly five hours long. His ‘glory days’ period in MLS gets less than five minutes.

The golden egg laid in Beckham’s L.A. contract was the right to purchase an MLS franchise for US$25-million. Inter Miami is currently valued at US$600-million.

But what Beckham bought wasn’t part of a league. Why should it be? Beckham doesn’t rate MLS now any more than he did when he played in it.

Even though he’s an investor, he still talks about the league with amused derision. Every sentence he utters about it has an implied ‘… but you know, I once played for Alex Ferguson’ tacked onto the end.

Is anyone surprised? At his peak, they used to close down airport terminals so Beckham could walk through them. Now he’s supposed to pretend that Sporting Kansas City is something he takes seriously?

Messi went to Miami for a bunch of reasons. He already owned a house there. He can get by in Spanish. He’s left alone.

But mostly he can go there because he’s playing for a guy who gets it. This isn’t about winning championships. It’s about building an empire. It’s about scooping up as much money as possible for as long as you can.

While a soccer empire may conceivably be headquartered in North America, it’s never going to be about North America.

Major League Soccer? Even the name’s a punchline. Major league as compared to what? It’d be like changing the KHL’s name to the VBHL (the Very Best Hockey League). The more you insist, the less anyone is inclined to listen.

Like Beckham, Messi didn’t come to North America to change the game. He came to launch himself into the next phase of his career – the post-sports billionaire. He’s in his Roger Federer/Serena Williams moment. That uncanny time where he still plays a sport, but is starting to turn off the lights. He’s more of an idea than an athlete now – an idea that’s worth a lot of money to a lot of people.

The important thing is to extend this moment for as long as possible. In Europe, he would be withering by comparison with his competition. In America, he can remain frozen in place as the greatest in history for years to come.

By their actions, you can see where and how Beckham and Messi see MLS in this plan – as a step ladder to bigger opportunities and a scheduling inconvenience. Now that it’s out of the way for the year, the real work of global sales can begin.