A takeover of LeBron in MLS? Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami power game is now complete

In many ways, the transformation of Inter Miami by Lionel Messi was instantaneous. He arrived in 2023 with a traction similar to God and, of course, with an extraterrestrial talent. He attracted unfathomable attention. He demanded New safety levels and professionalism. He transformed the average JOES into a goal creators and a cellar by a trophy, all in less than two months.

What he didn’t instantly had, however, was total control. He needed time to familiarize himself with the levers of power. Thus, his takeover of Inter Miami was progressive and largely invisible – so far.

Now, in the 3rd year, it seems complete. Messi will target several titles in 2025 with a longtime teammate as head coach and with his “”Football dad“” – his former coach of the academy and “football dad” – supervising the list of Inter Miami.

If her first semester was Mania and her second most precious year, she will be an experience: can a superstar-GM, at LeBron James, succeed in the major football league?

In 2024, Messi gathered a great team of friends; They won the supporters’ shield with a record number of regular season points, but they collapsed from the CONCACAF champions cup and the MLS qualifying series.

In 2025, they were completely, undeniably, Messi’s team. The question is whether they are better for this.

Messi’s growing influence

Messi, like any supremely successful athlete, has had a significant influence throughout his career. As a humble and sweet incident, he has not always brandished it. But him has Using it, often with his father, friends or confidants as his intermediaries.

In Miami, where his stature overshadowed that of the club, he first used his power to raise standards. “He defended the group many times when we have had problems with the flights, or the meals were not good enough,” said Kamal Miller, a Miami defender in 2023, in Yahoo Sports last year. “He was talking and representing the team with owners and coaches.” The staff would change their habits on Messi’s command.

However, it is the typical behavior of the captain. Messi’s off-season in 2024-25 was something else.

It started when head coach Tata Martino resigned for “personal reasons”. Four days later, Inter Miami hired a replacement: Javier Mascherano, whose main qualification seemed to be his decade as a teammate of Messi in Barcelona and with the Argentine national team. The only experience of Mascherano coach had been with the Argentine youth teams, which he organized in three major tournaments; They left the three without direct elimination victory.

The former pugnacious midfielder was hired, at least in part, because the owner manager of Inter Miami, Jorge Mas, spoke with Messi shortly after the resignation of Martino. “I asked him,” What is important for you? ” And what is important to make the most of our list and from 11? How to improve? Remember Mas. “Leo shared his thoughts with me.”

Mas continued by saying that “familiarity with Leo and the other stars is an advantage in all aspects”.

“I want Leo to feel comfortable with the new coach arriving,” he added.

He said that he and Raúl Sanllehí – the former director of Barcelona who curiously massages Hired as president of football operations In June – “would make the lance” of the search for coaching. But there was little research. The decision was fast and for anyone with a brain, the reason was clear.

“Leo gave me what I asked him, which was in contribution,” said Mas after presenting Mascherano. “It was Leo’s involvement and commitment with me, which is frankly all the time.”

Messi, however, did not stop there. After a Confrontation With Sanlehí during the pre-season, the club reassured Sanllehí in a department not entirely different. He replaced it with Guillermo Hoyos, who was the coach of the teenager Messi at the Masia, Barcelona’s Academy.

While Hoyos subsequently rebounded in a multitude of concerts of short -term coaches in indescribable clubs in Greece, Cyprus, Bolivia, Colombia, Jacksonville, Chile, Argentina and Mexico, Messi would have remained Close to Argentinian, now 61 years old. Hoyos then followed Messi in Miami and became director of the Inter academy. Now he is the best football leader of the club – and it is very difficult to know how much, if necessary, he knows the regulations of the Arcana list that govern the MLS.

Messi’s Miami-But will it work?

When Messi returned in 2023, Miami football operations were managed by sports director Chris Henderson. Henderson, a MLS Lifer, built the list which, in 2024, won as often without Messi as with him. He has expertly sailed the convoluted rules; He was maneuvering under the salary ceiling; He is widely praised in the league circles as an architect of the winners of the supporters’ shield.

To reward him, halfway until 2024, prohibiting Sanlehí above him.

And so, at the end of 2024, Henderson had left for Atlanta United; His former n ° 2, Mark Prizant, director of scouting and recruitment, had jumped to San Diego.

In their absence, the Inter has returned to familiar wells. He replaced the Diego Gómez, Facundo Farías, Leonardo Campana and Matías Rojas with a new share of South American talents. Argentinian striker Tadeo Allende will complete Messi and Luis Suárez; The Venezuelan midfielder Telasco Segovia should associate well with Sergio Busquets and Federico Redondo; The rear of the Argentinian rear Gonzalo Luján and the Uruguayan central rear Max Falcón could devote a fleeing defense. This again resembles the strongest list of MLS.

But, of course, there is no guarantee that the new signatures will take place as did last year.

There is an uncertainty surrounding which, exactly, will make the next signature.

And there are all kinds of questions about Mascherano’s ability to manage this work, his first as a coach in a professional club.

There are questions about his ability to carefully manage four players who, for eight years, were one of his best friends. “The relationship I have with Leo, I never denied and I will never do it,” said Mascherano in December. He is also “very close” to Busquets, Suarez and Jordi Alba, and “I’m not going to walk in the locker room and not be their friend,” he said. What he will try to do is “separating my work from my friendships”, while establishing relationships with a dozen players of which he had probably never heard four months ago.

And there are questions about his ability to train. Mascherano is well aware of this. “I have no doubt that I can do this job,” he said. “But in the end, no matter what I say, the results and the season and what people see is where opinion will emerge if the skeptics were good or wrong.”

Skepticism, however, will not start and will not stop with it. He will extend to Messi, whose fingerprints are now everywhere in the club. It will extend to its influence, which, on the whole, has been extremely positive … But has it extended too far?

Time will tell us. Or, perhaps, Messi’s magic feet will make its GM capacities not relevant.

After all, he won his influence. He will ultimately own a minority. He will mainly model the club to his taste, at any time and as he wants.