The question of how big a difference Lionel Messi can make to American soccer is a two-layered conundrum, part of which must be deferred for years and another level to the puzzler which is being answered right now.
If we are talking in overarching, macro terms, who knows what the game as a whole looks like once a decade has gone by and the full impact of Messi’s switch to Inter Miami can be accurately felt, like it was with David Beckham before him and hopefully, future worldwide superstars to follow.
But if you want to see immediate differences, some tangible proof that things aren’t as they were before and have been for a long time, it is right here, the freshest evidence coming this week from a lovely old soccer competition that sadly doesn’t get the reverence its antiquity deserves.
The Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, if we are being even fractionally honest, doesn’t register a single blip on the wider American sports radar in any given year. That’s because it doesn’t even generate much of a glance in the sphere of American soccer, crammed in among other splashier, more coveted trophies.
And yet here we are this week and the Open Cup matters, so much in fact that the semifinals were broadcast across 20 foreign countries a month ago. It will matter even more on Wednesday night, when Messi tries to win his 45th career trophy, an extravagant and outrageous number. Manchester City, the reigning English Premier League and Champions League winner, has amassed 33 trophies in its entire 143-year history.
Messi makes everything matter because he is living, breathing, goal-scoring history, and his presence ignited a soccer summer in which highlight-reel moments came flashing by with dizzying regularity.
Inter Miami will host the Houston Dynamo at DRV PNK Stadium in the final on Wednesday night, having already survived five do-or-die battles in the single-elimination tournament. If they win, it would mean a new addition to the Messi mantelpiece, following the Leagues Cup title secured just weeks after his move to America.
There is some concern regarding his fitness, with head coach Tata Martino revealing Messi is suffering from issues related to scar tissue from an old injury. He missed a pair of MLS games, but is expected to start the final.
“It is not an easy decision,” Martino told reporters. “But we are going to take the right amount of time and try not to make a mistake.”
How do you think Lionel Messi changes the brand of MLS?
We think of American soccer as being a creation of modern times, with Major League Soccer having come into being in the aftermath – and because of – the 1994 World Cup on these shores.
But the Open Cup has been around since the 1913-14 rendition, making it the longest active annual sports tournament in the entire country. COVID did what wars, the Great Depression and nothing else could, forcing a two-year hiatus, but it came back again, not necessarily stronger than ever.
In many other countries, most notably England with the storied FA Cup, there is a romantic element to Cup competitions, with teams from the lower leagues getting an opportunity to try their luck and, as long as they keep winning, eventually join the bigger fish who enter for the latter rounds.
This year’s Open Cup tournament included all U.S.-based MLS teams, 24 from the second-tier USL Championship, and also squads from the lower reaches of the American soccer pyramid, with cheery names such as the Lansdowne Yorkers, Crossfire Redmond, Brazos Valley Cavalry FC and the Des Moines Menace.
Occasionally, lower tier outfits have gone on deep, heroic runs. This time all four semifinalists came from MLS, where Messi’s Miami squad continued its golden run by beating FC Cincinnati, the best team in MLS this season, on penalty kicks.
As 2023 rumbles onward, it has been quite a 12-month period for Messi, highlighted by the most important of all, when he helped Argentina take home the World Cup from Qatar in December.
Inter Miami is cruising without Messi, and Argentina is flourishing with Messi
During his glittering career, Messi has won an Olympic gold medal, the Champions League, the Copa America, countless league titles, and pretty much anything else that has been put up for grabs.
Stacked alongside those pieces of hardware, the U.S. Open Cup could be considered a small prize. Usually. Because, as American soccer is quickly finding out, attach Messi to something, and it matters.
