Inter Miami's preseason tour from hell! Not even Lionel Messi can disguise the MLS favorites' shambolic offseason

Miami kicked-off their run of friendlies with a clash against the El Salvador national team, and though they were playing pretty poorly in what finished as a 0-0 draw, there was little reason for concern this early in their campaign.

That was until Facundo Farias went down clutching his knee in the second half of Miami's preseason opener. The Argentinian starlet, who shined so brightly as Messi's understudy in 2023, saw his season end before it could begin. A torn ACL, the club confirmed. Season over.

It was a catastrophic loss, one that robbed the club of a key attacking player. Farias was going to be key this season, with Messi's international commitments and Luis Suarez's fitness issues set to leave gaps in the attack for Tata Martino to fill with players such as the 21-year-old playmaker. Not this year, though.

A 1-0 loss to FC Dallas continued Miami's inauspicious start, but it was the bad news that came shortly after that hurt most. Benjamin Cremaschi, last season's breakout homegrown star, will miss several months with a sports hernia.

After two games, Miami had lost two young players that were poised to play key roles this season. And that all happened before the club even really got going on the travel portion of this world tour.

The video was clipped almost immediately. There sat Turki Al-Shikh, the Saudi Chairman of General Authority for Entertainment, cozied up in his luxury box. As Messi emerged from the Miami bench to make his long-awaited appearance against Al-Nassr, Al-Shikh responded as the camera panned to him. Stone-faced, sunglasses on and six fingers in the air, he denoted the scoreline on one of the worst days in Inter Miami's young history.

He wasn't the only one laughing at Miami's 6-0 battering at the hands a Cristiano Ronaldo-less Al-Nassr. Even without the injured Portuguese superstar, the world was watching on with intrigue as two rising superpower clubs faced off. In the end, one looked like a superpower, alright; the other looked like a team in need of saving.

By the time Messi came on for the final few minutes, Inter Miami were far beyond that. They'd been blitzed by Saudi Pro League leaders Al-Hilal days earlier, with their second-half fightback only enough to salvage a 4-3 defeat. There was no salvaging the scoreline against Al-Nassr, however, and there was no erasing the smirk from Ronaldo's face seated high above the field as his side ran roughshod over Messi's.

That game further illustrated the fact that there is no true rivalry between MLS and the Saudi Pro League. They're operating under different financial constraints with different paths to success and different beliefs on how to get there. One game, particularly a friendly where one of the teams is in preseason mode, won't decide a winner.

Still, it was an embarrassing day for Miami. With the world watching on, they were crushed. It did little to develop the club's reputation or showcase its on-field product. By the time it was over, Inter Miami's trip to Saudi Arabia had only further exposed how far this team had left to go.

As Miami moved on to Hong Kong, the fans who filled the Hong Kong Stadium to see Messi play felt they had been sold a false promise. The eight-time Ballon d'Or winner was ruled out of Miami's fourth preseason match with a minor injur, and so the boos rang out: for Messi, for David Beckham and for Inter Miami, who stumbled into a PR disaster due to their superstar's fitness problems.

On one side, you can feel for the fans, many of whom were looking forward to fulfilling their dreams of seeing Messi in the flesh. Supporters from all over the world would do just about anything to see the Argentinian icon play, particularly if they haven't yet already. Time is running out, for sure, so every chance to see Messi take the field feels a bit bigger these days.

The other side, though, is the one based on reality. This was a sporting event and, sometimes, injuries happen. Messi was dealing with one, as was Suarez.

“We understand the disappointment of the fans for the absence of Leo and Luis Suarez,” Martino said. “We understand a lot of fans are very disappointed and we ask for their forgiveness. We wish we could have sent Leo and Luis on for at least a while, but the risk was too big.”

They simply couldn't play, but that fact didn't make those who paid their hard-earned money to see the game feel any better. One fan was seen decapitating a cardboard cutout of Messi, a fitting clip to describe how many in the stadium felt after the 4-1 Inter Miami win.

“We do feel a bit scammed by the club because we paid, and I think most people pay, to see Messi," fan Ada Kam told CNN, holding a placard that read "refund scam". "And it was advertised almost exclusively that Messi was going to play."

“Regarding Messi not playing the match today, the government, as well as all football fans, are extremely disappointed about the organizer’s arrangement," the Hong Kong government said in a statement. "The organizer owes all football fans an explanation.”

They are unlikely to get one that's different from the one Martino gave, and so in the end, Inter Miami's trip to Hong Kong did more harm than good.

Despite all of the good he's done since arriving in MLS, Messi has come under fire on occasion from the U.S. media. His lack of press conferences, a norm for sporting superstars in the United States, has drawn some criticism. Stars like LeBron James and Patrick Mahomes speak to reporters before and after every game, but Messi has been almost silent since his arrival.

That was until he spoke to media in Tokyo following the debacle in Hong Kong, offering his own explanation. "The truth is that it was bad luck that I couldn’t [play] on the day of the Hong Kong match," Messi said. "Unfortunately, in football, things can happen in any game, that we may have an injury. It’s a shame because I always want to participate, I want to be there, and even more so when it comes to these games when we travel so far and people are so excited to see our matches.

"I hope we can return and we can play another game and I can be present. As I do whenever I can. But the truth is that it is a shame that I was not able to participate.”

Messi admitted it himself, however, that after all of this travel and all of these games, he just couldn't wait to go home.

"I am a bit tired after such a long stretch of games and travel," Messi said ahead of Miami's match against Vissel Kobe, "and I'm eager to have us play this last game and then return home.”

Can you blame him? In less than three weeks, the team will have travelled nearly 28,000 miles to play on three different continents. It's a herculean effort, particularly for players currently undergoing preseason preparations. None of these players are fully-fit, and all have spent the last few weeks on planes and in hotel rooms to play all over the world.

The travel has been rough enough for the young players, but for players like 36-year-old Messi and 37-year-old Suarez, these trips aren't as easy as they used to be, especially for the Uruguayan, who has been dealing with knee issues for some time.

Now, let's be clear: Inter Miami players aren't travelling like the rest of us. They have the best of the best when it comes to hotels, transport arrangements, food and just about everything else. But, from a human level, this was a massive undertaking, particularly as the club prepares to play in four competitions this season.

For the third successive game, Messi did not start against Vissel Kobe on Wednesday, though he did come on in the second half of the 0-0 draw in Tokyo, suggesting he is moving towards being ready for Miami's first MLS match of the season against Real Salt Lake on February 21.

However, while it was good news for the Argentine in Japan, the same cannot be said for one of his former Barcelona team-mates, as Sergio Busquets was forced off with an ankle injury inside the first 25 minutes after being the victim of a horror challenge.

Regarded as one of the moist durable players of his generation, Busquets does not go down lightly, so to have seen the 35-year-old limping off and in such distress will have been a major concern for Martino, and it remains to be seen just how long he will be kept on the sidelines.

There was a scare, too, for Jordi Alba, who looked to have suffered a groin injury late in the first half, but managed to recover and continue playing after the break. Regardless, as Miami head home to take on Mesi's boyhood club Newell's Old Boys in their final preseason match, they do so battered and bruised.

On the field, it's been a rough few weeks. With just one win, two goalless draws and three losses, Miami's preseason hasn't gone to plan. One of those defeats, in particular, will sting more than the others, as this tour will largely be remembered for that 6-0 thrashing at the hands of Al-Nassr.

But this was never really about the on-field results. Any big wins or signature moments would only help toward the real end goal of expanding the Inter Miami empire.

The question now is how much damage this tour did to that dream. In a world where many still look down on MLS, Miami's on-field results will only harm the perception of the league from outsiders. Fans who don't watch the league regularly will look at that Al-Nassr game as proof that Messi and co. aren't worth watching on a week-to-week basis.

It would be one thing, too, if the club built up some goodwill on this tour, but that didn't happen either. Through little fault of their own, their disastrous stay in Hong Kong gave them a new reputation in that part of the world: one of a club that can't deliver, even if that isn't totally fair.

None of this will matter, of course, if Miami succeeds this season. This is still preseason. Real games are around the corner, and if those go to plan, most of this will be forgotten.

This tour increased the pressure, though, for a team that wanted to put itself under a microscope. The world watched on as they stumbled through this first Messi-led tour, and will be watching on to see what this rising club learned from its hellish preseason.