Lionel Messi didn’t fancy the handshakes at the end. Instead, after losing to Nashville in admittedly cruel fashion – thanks to the away goals rule – he stormed down the tunnel.
It had been a mixed night for Miami’s captain. In the seventh minute, he scored his 900th career goal. In the 74th, he could only watch as Nashville’s Cristian Espinoza bundled the ball over the line following some fairly shambolic Miami defending. Miami, as hosts, needed a goal of their own. It never came.
And so Miami have failed. The CONCACAF Champions Cup is an odd competition, but one that, historically, has served as a measure of the relative prowess of MLS teams. Want to be the best team on the continent? Beat all of the others. In the end, Miami couldn’t beat one of their own.
It comes at a particularly bleak juncture for the Herons, not least because co-owner Jorge Mas had announced, with rather clear intent, that Miami would throw everything at the Cup this year. They had won MLS Cup, Leagues Cup, and Supporters’ Shield in each of Messi’s three seasons in South Florida.
But they will have to wait, it seems, for trophy No. 4, marking a massive blow for a team that spent so much and has been hyped by so many.
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Getty Images SportA game that didn’t go their way
In the early goings, this looked an awful lot like a Miami game Wednesday. They had a lot of the ball, and Nashville were happy to let them have it. German Berterame, who has struggled since his arrival from Liga MX side Monterrey, fired at the goalkeeper from close range inside four minutes. Soon after, Messi redeemed him.
The goal was a ridiculous thing: Messi receiving the ball facing away from goal, easing past one defender before firing through the legs of a second and into the bottom corner.
And from there, it seemed a familiar story. This is the bit where Miami, at their best, go on to kill things off. The knife was in;, it just needed to be twisted. And the little Argentinian tried. But the goal didn’t seem to deter Nashville’s resolve. They didn’t really change.
After snatching a 0-0 draw in the first leg, a goal was all they needed. And they got that when Miami’s defense collapsed as Alex Muyl’s deflected shot looped towards goal. Dayne St. Clair punched away. Espinoza, a free agent signing from San Jose, reacted first and smashed home. The Nashville bench was sent into raptures. It wasn’t a pretty moment. But it didn’t have to be.
From then on, it was panic mode for the Herons. Things went from controlled to frantic. But there was no intent, no belief. Miami made two attacking changes and, in the final 15 minutes, created just two clear chances. Messi had just one attempt at goal, a speculative effort into traffic that even by his own Ballon d’Or-winning standards was speculative.
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Getty Images SportFailure after a historic spend
And so Miami go home. Of course, it was always going to be a difficult ask this year. MLS squads, in general, do not have the budget or the quality to compete on three fronts. Success in the Leagues Cup, MLS and CONCACAF Champions Cup is a massive ask.
Yet Miami recruited heavily over the winter with that central goal. At times, it felt like a Bayern Munich-esque offseason, where the team plucked some of the top talents in the area and relied on the fact that they wanted to play for them. St. Clair, the reigning MLS Goalkeeper of the Year, turned down bigger money from Minnesota United to pen a deal. His reasoning? He wanted to play in the CONCACAF Champions Cup for a team expected to win it – thus making Wednesday night’s loss immensely awkward.
Tadeo Allende returned for more money than some MLS clubs’ total outlay. Facundo Mura, Sergio Reguilon, David Ayala, Rodrigo De Paul (permanently), and finally Berterame all came in. By the end of it all, they had spent $45 million this offseason. The next most ambitious club, Houston, spent $15 million. It was a winter of intent, sure, but also one unlike the league had ever seen.
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Getty Images SportNothing short of an embarrassment
Wednesday, then, was an embarrassment. That is no discredit to Nashville, who are a fine MLS team. They will likely be in the top four in the Eastern Conference. They are well coached, well balanced, and paced by individual talent. They are not reinventing the wheel in terms of model or quality, but there is no shame, in theory, in losing to them.
Yet this was an MLS side. Miami are built, in theory, to win against Toluca, Pumas, or Cruz Azul. They are supposed to be able to play their bench in these games. There was talk that they could push for a spot in the Copa Libertadores. If this was a tryout of sorts, then it was an immense failure. They lost to one of their own when they insisted that they could compete against South America’s best.
Perhaps a counter-argument is that MLS sides have gotten stronger in the Champions Cup, anyway. Nashville deserve to be here as much as Miami. Yet Mexican teams had a clear upper hand in the Round of 16. Toluca battered 10-man San Diego at home. Club America left Philadelphia with a 1-1 to advance on aggregate. It is, in effect, up to FC Cincinnati, who play Tigres Thursday evening, to show that MLS can compete against Mexican sides in a competition they haven’t won since 2022.
Miami, too, will need time to adjust. They have added some new faces here and lost some old ones. There are new movements to figure out, fresh legs added to the locker room. These things do not simply change overnight.
