Leo Messi’s failure to inspire Inter Miami has claimed its first victim



Ever since Leo Messi arrived at Inter Miami, the interest in MLS has skyrocketed.

The club’s success in the regular season, due in no small part to Messi and his ex-Barcelona colleagues Sergio Busquets, Luis Suarez and Jordi Alba, saw FIFA award them a place at next summer’s revamped Club World Cup.

Without an experienced manager in Tata Martino at the helm too, it’s unlikely that Inter would’ve steamrollered teams as they had done in the most recent MLS season.

Leo Messi sees ally Tata Martino leave Inter Miami

Despite being favourites to land the MLS Cup, Inter went out at the first stage in a huge upset, ironically against Martino’s former employers, Atlanta United, who he had previously taken to MLS Cup glory.

That evident failure has seen the manager decide to leave the club immediately for ‘personal reasons,’ (Give Me Sport) which means that David Beckham’s plan to have a manager in place for 10 years has been ripped to shreds.

Gerardo Martino of Inter Miami looks on before the match against Atlanta United. (Photo by Megan Briggs/Getty Images)

It also brings a sliver of doubt in terms of which managerial names are big enough to be able to step into Martino’s shoes.

Arguably, whoever comes in now has a more difficult job, given how much the expectation levels will have risen.

From a team that were once the laughing stock of the league, Inter are very much now the team to beat, and an MLS Cup victory next season will not only be demanded, it will be expected.

Perhaps Martino has understood that the difficulty of so doing in 2025 means he would’ve been on a hiding to nothing, and therefore the present moment is the ideal time to get out.


 

From the club’s perspective they need to quickly get over the disappointment of the Atlanta defeat as well as Tata’s decision.

They’ll have a few months to lick their wounds and go again in the new year.