Greg Cote’s Hot Button Top 10: Fake grass, real problem? MLS scrambling to fix a Messi situation

GREG COTE’S HOT BUTTON TOP 10 (JULY 23): WHAT IN SPORTS HAS GRABBED US LATELY: Our Sunday Hot Button Top 10 feature had been blog-only, but with our blog now retired it moved, re-imagined, to online-only. HB10 means what’s on our minds, locally and nationally, but from a Miami perspective and accentuating stuff that’s major, offbeat, damnable, funny or worth needling as the sports week just past pivots to the week ahead. Welcome to the 24th edition of the new HB10:

1. SOCCER: With victory and viewers, U.S. starts big in World Cup: The USWNT’s World Cup opener vs. Vietnam in Auckland, New Zealand drew a robust 5.261 million viewers on Fox (with a 6.552M peak) despite a late-ish 9 p.m. start ET and direct competition from Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami debut. Rising U.S. star Sophia Smith, 22, wowed with two goals (Hello, America!) in the 3-nil victory. The two-time defending champion Americans face Netherlands Wednesday night.

2. SOCCER: Glorious debut night for Messi with Inter Miami: If the world needed a reminder of Lionel Messi’s continuing greatness at 36, he provided it with his last-second free-kick goal in his Inter Miami debut, a 2-1 victory over Mexico’s Cruz Azul in the Leagues Cup opener in Fort Lauderdale. Messi drew an estimated 3.05 million viewers to Univision. The total will catapult when streaming numbers are out from Apple TV+ along with views on YouTube and Twitch views.

3. SOCCER: Fake turf, real problem. Messi’s surface preference an issue for MLS: Lionel Messi has never played a match on artificial turf and has no plan to start now. That is only a problem for MLS because six teams -- six that draw some of the biggest crowds -- have fake grass: Atlanta, Charlotte, New England, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. Miami plays at least two remaining games on fake grass (Sept. 16 at ATL, Oct. 21 at CHA), and more the next two seasons. Will Messi disappoint 21 percent of the league’s fans? Will teams change their playing surface for one man? It’s an issue that has Commissioner Don Garber scrambling behind-scenes to remedy.

4. GOLF: Who? Brian Harman in command at British Open: The final round of The Open Championship (which we regular folk call the British Open) is underway at Royal Liverpool Golf Club, and journeyman American Brian Harman carried a big 5-shot lead into it. Harman, 36, from Georgia, won minor PGA Tour events in 2014 and 2017. Today he will win his first major or suffer the ignominy of a monumental collapse. Have a nice day!

5. DOLPHINS: Remember the Fins? They’ve opened training camp: Rookies have been on the field almost a week and the full squad opens camp this Tuesday, working toward the August 11 preseason opener. You remember the Dolphins. The NFL team? They were a pretty big deal before Messi hijacked Miami.

6. MARLINS: Uh oh. The Marlins are being the Marlins again: Miami entered the All-Star Break on playoff pace as one of the surprise teams in MLB. The Fish have since lost eight games in a row (!) and fallen just off playoff pace. As for Luis Arraez making a run at .400? He’s at .375 and heading south. Marlins gonna Marlin.

7. NFL: Jaguars assistant coach makes history: Jacksonville assistant strength and conditioning coach Kevin Maxen has become the first male coach in major American men’s professional team sports to publicly reveal he is gay. Maxen told Outsports.com he no longer wished to hide who he is and that he hoped he might inspire others. His openness is especially relevant and welcome at a time of attacks on LGBTQ rights in American state legislatures, including Florida under Ron DeSantis.

8. HEAT: Hips don’t lie. But do the rumors about Jimmy and Shakira?: Heat star Jiimmy Butler, 33, and Colombian singing star Shakira, 46, have a relationship going, though where it’s headed is TBD. Hips don’t lie. Neither do cameras. The two reportedly were seen sharing a three-hour dinner in London at tony Novikov Restaurant & Bar after she had earlier attended one of his NBA Finals games in Miami. Shakira has two sons with former beau Gerard Pique, the soccer star, and also has been linked to Tom Cruise and Lewis Hamilton.

9. CYCLING: Beer scandal comes to head at Tour de France: The famed cycling race ends Sunday but controversy, albeit the silly kind we like, surrounds overall leader Jonas Vingegaard and his Jumbo-Visma team. The rival Groupama-FDJ team lashed out at Jumbo-Visma team manager Richard Plugge, alleging that riders from the French-based team out front drank “large beers” during a rest day. Outrage!

10. BASKETBALL: The BIG3 League still insists on becoming something: BIG3, the 3-on-3 sort-of professional basketball league formed in 2017 by the rapper Ice Cube, is still at it, not quite failing but not really succeeding, either. The 12 teams swing through Miami for a six-game blitz at the Heat arena on Sunday. The 3’s Company team includes former Heat players Michael Beasley and Mario Chalmers who, sadly, are two of the more prominent players. The biggest names in BIG3 are the coaches, who include Julius Erving, Michael Cooper, Rick Barry, Gary Payton and Charles Oakley.

Other most recent stuff from me: ‘Dreaming with eyes wide open’: Tears, joy for Messi’s Miami debut from Section 118, Row 20 / World Cup: Why U.S. women’s soccer stands for more than a team and is an historic reign worth cheering / Messi in Miami at 36: ‘Just another player’? Time to show doubters how great he still is / Messiah: Miami unveils Messi with bombast, fireworks, ‘holy water’ ... and hope / Previous HB10 / And my latest podcast: