Explained: How Lionel Messi paid the price for helping Inter Miami exceed expectations laid out by Argentine coach Tata Martino

The seven-time Ballon d’Or headed to the United States when reaching the end of his contract at Paris Saint-Germain. Messi had the chance to return to Barcelona, but opted instead to take on a entirely different challenge in America.

He helped Inter Miami to a historic Leagues Cup triumph within weeks of his arrival in Florida, but then picked up an injury on international duty with Argentina and will not play any part in the MLS play-offs as collective performances dipped during his absence. Martino has explained how claiming major silverware was never part of the plan: “The season, really, I thought it was going to be completely different from what happened. My expectations were to create the group, train them in our style of soccer, don't go too deep in Leagues Cup, and compete very well – because we only had two games in the cup – and to be classified [for the play-offs].”

Inter Miami ended up adding five extra games to their schedule, with those minutes catching up with them – and Messi in particular – as untimely knocks began to take their toll. Martino added after seeing a bid to reach the post-season come to a close: “We had our most wonderful moments until the [September] FIFA dates. And we had problems after that because of an accumulation of games and injuries. Up to that point, we had an idea – it wasn't trained very well, but it was very clear in the players’ heads. I believe that with the losses we started to have, the modifications we started to make, so many variables in the team changed from one game to the next – because we had to modify it to be able to take care of our players – we deteriorated our idea. In the last 20 days, we had our worst time of the year, of course when we had the most need to have the team as healthy as possible.”

Messi did return to action off the bench in Inter Miami’s meeting with FC Cincinnati, but was unable to prevent them from slipping to a 1-0 defeat that brought their play-off bid to an end. Messi will now take in a lengthy break over the winter before the 2024 MLS campaign gets underway.