da dobrowin： The club fell short when it comes to the postseason, but there were too many big wins elsewhere to call this season a failure
da bet esporte： Inter Miami's 2023 season is effectively over. There are still two games to be played, both against Charlotte FC, but in Miami's case at least, those don't matter. Their fate is sealed at this point. Even with those two games, their race has been run.
Before each and every season, MLS clubs embark with one primary goal in mind: make the playoffs. In reality, it isn't the hardest of goals. More than half of the league reaches the postseason, some through talent, some through sheer force of will and others through… well, lots and lots of luck combined with too much incompetence from those below them.
There are secondary goals, too: trophies, transfers, off-field initiatives. Still, when every team kicks off preseason in the early months of the year, the first mission that everyone starts pushing towards is the playoffs.
And, in that part, Inter Miami failed. After squeaking into the postseason in 2022, they fell short this time around. With two games left, they're already eliminated. There will be no more high-stakes games in South Florida this year.
But, as always, this discussion deserves just a little bit more nuance than that. Inter Miami may have failed in their postseason goal, but this campaign can't be labelled as anything other than a big success.
GettyPre-Messi
Do you remember what we said about teams stumbling into the playoffs due to the incompetence of those at the bottom of the league? Well, that was nearly Inter Miami.
For two-thirds of the season, the Herons were those incompetent bumblers. They were in last place for large stretches, costing manager Phil Neville his job. For months, Miami looked nothing like an actual team, let alone a playoff team, as just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong at DRV PNK Stadium.
Those months, and they were long months, were total failures. The club made the postseason in 2022, partly thanks to the heroics of Gonzalo Higuain, but, with the Argentine now gone, all hope was essentially lost in Miami by the time the summer started.
Things change rather quickly in MLS, though. Admittedly those changes don't always involve the arrival of perhaps the greatest player the game has ever seen, but that's exactly where Miami turned.
AdvertisementGettyThe GOAT arrives… and wins a trophy!
When we talk about it 25 years from now, it'll be hard to explain the mania that gripped MLS following Lionel Messi's arrival to those that weren't there to see it. Messi, the seven-time Ballon d'Or winner, showed up with two of his best friends to play for MLS' worst team, instantly turning them into an unstoppable juggernaut that ran through the region's best.
Miami's Leagues Cup run will define that competition for years to come. It's the competition that Messi built, and he did so in Inter Miami pink as for several weeks straight, Miami captured not just the American public, but the world's attention.
Fans from around the globe tuned in as Messi and co. trampled teams from both MLS and Liga MX, ultimately winning the club's first-ever trophy. Free-kicks, late goals, crazy assists, penalty shootouts… The run had it all and, most importantly for Miami, it had silverware at the end.
To be fair, we still don't know how much the Leagues Cup means and where it fits in the evolving ecosystem that is North American soccer. But it's fair to say that trophy is more important because Messi touched it, won it and defined it to announce himself to the American public.
Getty Images'Mission Impossible' falls short
The first weeks after the Leagues Cup, Inter Miami rode that high. They won some big games and, in the process, ignited the slightest flicker of hope. In the end, though, reaching the playoffs proved impossible, even for Messi, who was forced to helplessly watch on as the club's MLS campaign came crashing down.
They had dug too deep of a hole, in the end. Messi, Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets stepped into a last-place team and, once the former two went down with injuries, that team couldn't dig itself out.
It all ended on Saturday against Supporter's Shield winners FC Cincinnati, whose 1-0 win over Miami stretched Inter's winless run to five games in all competitions. Messi made a second-half appearance, a last-gasp roll of the dice for a Miami team that needed a win, but he couldn't save them, especially not at way less than 100 percent.
So it'll be a long offseason in Miami. No playoffs, no postseason and plenty of time to think about it over the coming months. That's the bad news. The good news is that this isn't the end of Inter Miami's project, even if it is the end of their season.
GettySquad built for future success
Anything that happens with Inter Miami can be separated into two buckets: on-field and off-field. For now, we'll start with the on-field portion.
It was a season of two eras, really: pre and post-Messi. The pre-Messi portion was a disaster. The post-Messi portion was a rollercoaster of success.
There's no denying that, from an on-field standpoint, Inter Miami are in a better place than they were a year ago, even if they aren't heading to the postseason this time around. They have Messi, Alba and Busquets, of course, and those are just the headliners. Rising stars like Facundo Farias, Diego Gomez and Tomas Aviles have committed their future to Miami, and American talent like Benjamin Cremaschi and Drake Callender took massive steps forward in their own careers.
If you look at the actual squad, and the manager in Tata Martino, Miami have constructed one of the best teams in MLS. Unfortunately for them, that all happened after the team established itself as one of the worst teams in MLS for just a bit too long.
Still, from a sporting perspective, Inter Miami knocked it out of the park. They won a trophy and set themselves up for success for years to come. That success wasn't immediate, but it rarely is.
Starting in 2024, no club will want to go toe-to-toe with Inter Miami and, because of that, you have to give credit to those that built, and will continue to build, this squad.