The ending was abrupt and painful. Saturday night in South Florida, the locker room was somber. And somewhere in the haze of the biggest upset in Major League Soccer history, a startling reality emerged: Lionel Messi will enter the final guaranteed year of his MLS contract without a single playoff series win. .
He was supposed to transform the league and Inter Miami. In some ways, it certainly has. But his body failed him in 2023. Atlanta United surprised him in 2024. He entered his second MLS offseason with more uncertainty than hope, and with a penetrating question looming:
Where do Messi and Inter Miami go from here?
The answer, in a sense, didn’t change Saturday night. They will still be the faces of the league in 2025. Thanks to FIFA, they will headline the Club World Cup, a platform on which their global ambitions could flourish.
But the rest of the answer depends on where MLS lets them go and, eventually, what Messi wants to do with the rest of his life.
Can Messi’s dream team get the boost it needs?
When Messi signed with Inter and MLS last June, he did so on a two-and-a-half-year contract, reportedly with the option to add another year and stay until 2026.
He The official “squad profiles” of the league Don’t include that option year. But anyway, unless something completely unforeseen happens, Messi will return next season. Sergio Busquets will also do it. Jordi Alba and Luis Suárez probably will be too: Alba has a 2025 option in his contract, and Suárez revealed last month that he wants to extend his. The core of the superteam should remain intact.
Beyond the Fantastic Four, goalkeeper Drake Callender, defender Tomás Avilés, midfielder Federico Redondo, midfielder Julián Gressel, winger Facundo Farías (who missed the entire 2024 season after tearing his ACL), forward Leonardo Campana, midfielder Benjamín Cremaschi and other young players are under contract until 2025.
The club could also choose to bring back midfielder Matías Rojas, defender Marcelo Weigandt and midfielder Yannick Bright, all regulars in 2024.
Apart from star midfielder Diego Gómez, an emerging star who to Brighton In England, Miami could basically get him back. And despite Saturday’s shocking loss, that wouldn’t be a far-fetched idea. The Herons were the class of MLS in 2024. They earned more points in the regular season than any other team in league history. They fell apart this month less because they were fatally flawed and more because football is fortuitous.
Of course, they had flaws. Their midfield was porous in front of the ball. His defense was shaky. They will surely be looking for a solid center back to accompany Avilés in 2025. They cannot continue to concede more than 1.5 expected goals (xG) per game, as they did last season, and they hope to reach the MLS Cup.
But they also can’t, as a rule, add too many significant pieces under MLS’ current spending restrictions.
Many useful players would love to come and play with Messi. Most can’t, unless they take significant pay cuts, because MLS roster rules They are among the most prohibitive and arcane in world football. Neymar, for example, has frequently been linked with a move to Miami. But “today this is impossible,” Miami head coach Tata Martino said recently. The only way to enable it, Martino explained, would be for the league to “make the salary issue more flexible.”
Technically, Miami could have a little more flexibility than Martino suggested. But the broader point is that, with salaries and foreign players subject to certain caps, it is very difficult for any MLS club with stars to also build a deep and complete team.
The hope – in Miami and elsewhere, though certainly not everywhere – is that the rules can change. The arrival of Messi allowed the owner of Inter, Jorge Mas, and other leaders of the league, push to relax restrictions. When asked last winter why the easing hadn’t happened yet, MLS executive vice president of player strategy Todd Durbin said league executives had avoided incremental adjustments for 2024 because they didn’t want to “corner us or pigeonhole us”, in case they “wanted to”. make more radical changes or do a more significant overhaul of the system.”
Is that overhaul finally coming this offseason? The committee that actually decides, the MLS sports and competition committeeis scheduled to meet on November 20 in Los Angeles. A person close to the decision-making process told Yahoo Sports that the “salary cap and player investment model” is a major item on the committee’s agenda. Any proposed changes could be approved by the MLS board of governors (the owners) at its last meeting of the year on December 12.
A true reform could significantly change the calculations for Messi’s final years in Miami. And it could allow them to be more competitive on the biggest stage MLS has ever had.
The countdown begins for Miami on the world stage of the Club World Cup
The first edition of the expanded Club World Cup is coming to the United States next summer, provided FIFA can find a way to finance it. Part of the plan to attract broadcasters and sponsors, apparently, was to give Inter Miami the only open spot in the tournament, even though the Herons did not qualify according to any pre-established criteria.
So, in June, for the first time, they will probably face a UEFA Champions League team in a competitive match.
They could face Boca Juniors or River Plate; or Palmeiras, Flamengo or Fluminense.
They will surely play in front of a global television audience several times larger than what they get for MLS games on Apple. They will have the opportunity to grow their international brand and establish Miami as a destination for players and fans long after Messi leaves.
That will be the peak of their 2025 campaign. Then they will settle in for another MLS grind, another League Cup and another playoff run.
It remains to be determined if it will be Messi’s last. He has consistently said, as recently as last month, that he doesn’t know if he will still be playing professional soccer in 2026. “I hope to start (2025) by having a very good preseason, something I didn’t have last year. with all the trips we had and from there see how it goes,” Messi said in an interview on the eve of the playoffs.
For now, he lives “every day”, in the moment, having fun. He continues to serve and be a star of the Argentine team. They are on track to qualify for the 2026 World Cup.
That historic tournament, which will be played across North America, could force Messi to extend his contract with Inter Miami beyond 2025. If he doesn’t want to play another full MLS season, he could benefit from a disputed issue: executives and league owners are considering changing your calendarstarting seasons in August and concluding in the spring, beginning in 2026. If they make the switch, a possibility but not yet a probability, they will play a one-time competition in the spring of 2026 to close the gap, three people familiar with the arrangements told Yahoo Sports. discussions. Messi could sign up for that as his swan song at Inter Miami.
But even then, his MLS window would be half closed.
Suddenly, after Saturday, the clocks in Miami, and at league headquarters, tick audibly.