2023-06-09 00:20:00
We did not necessarily expect it across the Atlantic, but it is in Florida that Lionel Messi will continue his career. “I made the decision to go to Miami. It is still not 100% done but we have decided to take this path, ”the Argentinian told the Spanish daily Mundo Deportivo on Wednesday.
After more than fifteen years spent at FC Barcelona then two at Paris Saint-Germain, where the “Pulga” says that he “was not happy” and even less having “fun”, the game of the Argentinian will therefore s export to Major League Soccer (MLS), the main professional football league in North America. We take stock of what awaits the player in the jersey of Inter Miami.
A birth in 2018 under the leadership of David Beckham
Inter Miami is the club of David Beckham, himself a former American championship player. “When he signed in 2007 at the Los Angeles Galaxy, he negotiated with his contract the possibility of registering a new franchise in the future within the league at a reduced price, explains Antoine Latran, MLS specialist for CultureSoccer. This is what he did in 2018 by creating Inter Miami, and instead of the 150 million euros to be paid at the time, he only had to pay ” what ” 25 million euros”. He shares ownership of the club with brothers Jorge and Jose Mas, two businessmen.
Everything then remains to be created: a workforce, a sports strategy, a base of supporters… “The first months were complicated despite the signing of good players like Gonzalo Higuain, abounds Antoine Latran. They have been plagued with financial difficulties, some of which related to fines imposed following failure to comply with MLS rules.
At the time, the club had notably cheated to offer the services of another former Parisian, Blaise Matuidi. The latter had not been one of the three players in the so-called “designated” squad, that is to say the only ones who could receive a salary exceeding the framework set by MLS. A rule still in force today and which should logically benefit Lionel Messi.
Where will Lionel Messi play and train?
Since its integration into MLS in 2020, the club has played its home matches at the “Drive Pink Stadium », a 19,000 seat stadium located in Fort Lauderdale, a city in the northern suburbs of Miami. It is also there that the workforce trains, in a training center made up of seven football pitches and an academy.
But the Florida franchise should, from 2025, leave these spaces for bigger with the “Miami Freedom Park”. The project, which is to be erected in the airport sector of the city and which will therefore be closer to the center of the capital of Florida, will notably inhabit a 25,000-seat enclosure, “100% financed by private owners”. , assures the club.
A level of play “middle or even bottom of the Ligue 1 table”
Currently dead last in the MLS Eastern Conference regular season standings, the California franchise is one of the youngest in the league. “It’s a club with a middle or even low level in the Ligue 1 table, judge Antoine Latran. But some European players have sometimes failed to impose themselves in MLS, it should not be underestimated.
Still, the level of play can vary greatly from one player to another. ” With the salary cap, the teams are generally quite heterogeneous, continues Antoine Latran. You can have great players from European championships rubbing shoulders with young people from the club’s training center or even from a university football team. The championship as a whole is more homogeneous. “It is almost impossible to bet on a team, including from one year to another,” adds the specialist.
In Miami, Messi will find the former Lensois Corentin Jean, who arrived in Florida in the summer of 2022, the American DeAndre Yedlin, who notably played in Newcastle and Galatasaray, the Ecuadorian Leonardo Campana, passed by Wolverhampton in the Premiere League or again Rodolfo Pizarro, already selected for the Mexican national team. But it is on the coach’s side that the seven-time Ballon d’Or could find a well-known head, that of Gerardo “Tata” Martino. The Argentine press is talking about a possible agreement between the leaders of Inter Miami and the former coach of Barca and Albiceleste, who already had Messi under his orders for three years.
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