Now, Beckham, Jorge Mas and the rest of the Inter Miami ownership group are preparing to welcome Lionel Messi and Sergio Busquets. Jordi Alba might join them, too, but role players play an outsized role in the importance of a team’s success in this league.
Toronto thought they had the right mix, signing MLS veterans like goalkeeper Sean Johnson and center-back Matt Hedges while bringing in strikers well acquainted with Bradley like Adama Diomande and C.J. Sapong. Even with those moves, a few injuries, international call-ups and players underperforming expectations meant TFC were heavily reliant on talented but inexperienced players from their academy.
Twenty-year-old Deandre Kerr scored the opener on Saturday before TFC conceded two, while 19-year-old Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty has drawn interest from European clubs for his ability to play right-back or on the wing. In any other circumstance, those players would be learning in training rather than on the job in the starting XI.
Bradley thought he had to put them into the lineup.
Gerardo “Tata” Martino — likely to be announced soon as Inter Miami’s new manager — is well aware of the challenges he’ll face and how to overcome them. He won MLS Cup with Atlanta United in 2018 with a roster blending rising stars Miguel Almiron and Josef Martinez with long-time MLS veterans like Michael Parkhurst and Jeff Larentowicz.
The formula wasn’t that different from what he’d be asked to do were he to take over in Miami. Yet, even five years later, MLS is a more competitive league than when Martino lifted the trophy.
Messi is set to arrive in MLS as a reigning World Cup champion, still near his otherworldly peak. He’ll have some quality around him, with his superstar friends wanting to join the project. MLS roster rules mean some won’t be able to, or will have to take a paycut to join the fun. Even before that happens, Inter Miami have to figure out how to make it work within the league rules — rules they violated in 2020 when trying to build a winning team out of the gate.
In MLS, it seems like it should work to throw a bunch of money at a few players and watch the wins roll in. As Bradley and TFC now know well — and Martino, Messi and Miami could find out — just because something should happen doesn’t mean it will.
