HAVING completed football and futbol, Lionel Messi has now moved on to soccer. 

He has made a decent start on this latest level of the game he has created, called becoming the greatest association football player of all time.

Miami Messi is playing with freedom. With enjoyment. Any weight of having to prove he is the world’s best player through goals, trophies, and accolades—rather than just proving it by simply playing football—has now been removed.

He is living full-time in a city he used to visit for holidays, but this is still a job to be done, and much of the work in MLS is done on the road. This is not a holiday or a retirement.

The Messi travelling roadshow, featuring other attractions such as Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, is taking its entertainment across the United States and Canada.

Though Messi is providing such entertainment, and though there are football exhibitions, these games are not friendlies. There are trophies and titles at stake and Messi has wasted no time, winning one already.

There is a seriousness beneath the obvious enjoyment and more relaxed demeanour, built-in through years of striving to be the best.

Messi is the captain of this team, and this role given to him by head coach Gerardo Martino, who also managed him at Barcelona and Argentina, is not merely a token gesture.

Messi gives inspiring team talks, mentors young players, mucks in rather than standing aloof, and has also handed penalty-taking duties to the team’s spot-kick expert, Joseph Martinez.

He’s still scoring anyway and has netted in 10 of the eight games he’s played so far.

Amid the goals, the fanfare, the global coverage, and the trophy, it is easy to forget Messi has yet to actually play a game in the league he has joined—Major League Soccer (MLS).

Most of his games so far have been in a tournament called the Leagues Cup. A newly created competition between all the teams from MLS and all the teams from Mexico’s Liga MX.

This year’s was the third edition of the Leagues Cup, but the first involving every team in the two leagues, played in a World Cup/Champions League style format with a group stage followed by knockout rounds.

It was perfectly timed for Messi’s arrival and gave an early chance at success which was duly taken as Miami defeated Nashville SC on penalties in the final.

On winning the Leagues Cup, Messi claimed the 44th title of his career. For Inter Miami, who only played their first MLS season in 2020, it was a first.

Then came a semifinal in the US Open Cup away to FC Cincinnati. This tournament is the closest the United States has to the FA Cup and is quite unique in American sports as it is open to all teams, not just major league franchises.

Messi completed this level too, and his side will play Houston Dynamo in the final held at Miami’s home stadium in Fort Lauderdale on September 27.

Prior to Messi's arrival, Inter Miami were the worst team in MLS. When the league took a break for the Leagues Cup, they were at the bottom of the overall standings.

With league games resuming this weekend, that lowly position is the situation the team finds itself in as Messi plays his first MLS game.

It presents the strange scenario where a team that has just been crowned the best among teams from two leagues is currently bottom of the table in one of them.

There is no chance of relegation, as it doesn’t exist in MLS, but there is also only a slim chance that Inter Miami will qualify for the playoffs, which they would need to do to stand a chance of being considered 2023 MLS champions—a title that goes to the winner of the MLS Cup Playoffs rather than the team that tops the league.

As they go into this weekend's game against the New York Red Bulls in New Jersey, Inter Miami could be considered to be simultaneously the best and the worst team in MLS, but in 2023 they have effectively been two different teams, almost two different franchises. Pre-Messi, and with Messi.

It is the Messi version that is now, potentially, the best team in MLS. Only potentially because they are yet to play a game in MLS with Messi, and it is likely that another team will win the MLS Cup, at least in 2023 with the season around two-thirds of the way through already.

That said, given Messi’s performances in the Leagues Cup and Open Cup, pushing his side to victory in each game often in storybook fashion, you wouldn’t bet against Miami qualifying for the playoffs, and once there, who knows?