Messi sets up both goals as Inter Miami kicks off season with 2-0 win over Real Salt Lake

Lionel Messi and his pink clad Inter Miami teammates kicked off the 2024 MLS season Wednesday night and showed why they are the league’s main attraction, dazzling the Chase Stadium crowd with precision passing, juking defenders left and right, looking at times like a team in mid-season form as they beat Real Salt Lake 2-0.

All the fans’ concern about Inter Miami players starting the season exhausted after a 24,000-mile five-nation preseason tour were put to rest. Messi looked fully fit and highly motivated as he ran hard for 90 minutes and eluded defenders time and time again, threading passes through tiny spaces, changing direction and speed at will.

He provided the nifty pass that led to Robert Taylor’s goal in the 39^th minute and was also involved in Diego Gomez’s goal in the 83^rd minute. Messi and his close friend and former FC Barcelona teammate Luis Suarez, making his MLS debut, combined to get the ball to Gomez at close range for his goal.

“Last year we talked about how Messi opened up so much space, but you have Messi and Suarez now…it opens a lot of space for me on the wing,” said Taylor. “They link so well together, so they attract a lot of defenders to them, so it leaves space for me also sometimes.”

In one of the more eye-popping moments of the night that instantly went viral on social media, Messi flicked the ball over injured Andrew Brody, who was on the ground, then hurdled over him and kept dribbling to try to get a shot off. The near-sellout crowd of 21,137, which included actor Will Smith and retired NFL star Chad Ochocinco, savored every Messi moment.

“If anyone had doubts about what this team can do, I think the first half showed them,” said Inter Miami coach Tata Martino. “Messi was playing freely, with the same fine touch he always had. He has a characteristic no other player has. He can take the ball far away from the goal and the feeling everyone gets is that there is promise of a goal.”

In the closing minutes, the diehard “La Familia” fans in the north stands waved their giant flags, banged their drums and serenaded Messi and his teammates with the trademark Argentine chant: “Ole, Ole, Ola, Cada Dia Te Queiro Mas” (Ole, Ole, Ola, Every Day I Love You More).

There was a sense from the opening whistle that Inter Miami was eager to return to the team it was last summer, when Messi looked other-worldly and Miami looked unbeatable as they rolled to the Leagues Cup title before he proved mortal with an injury that led to the team’s late-season slide. Messi scored 11 goals in 14 matches last season, but the team’s goal-scoring dried up after his injury.

Wednesday night, Messi was back to creating magic alongside his three former FC Barcelona teammates Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, and Luis Suarez, the Uruguayan forward making his MLS debut. At times it looked like they had telepathy, moving into spaces just in time to receive passes.

“I had been saying since we got back from Japan two weeks ago that we needed to have more training sessions together for them to rediscover their rhythm,” Martino said of Messi and Suarez. “In their case, they know each other well, but it takes time for them to find that connection again that they had in Barcelona.”

Gomez, the standout player for the Paraguayan national team in the recent pre-Olympic qualifiers, shined in his pink jersey, as well.

“The opportunity to play was really important for me and I came in very focused and Tata has shown confidence in me since I arrived,” Gomez said. “We came in with a different mentality tonight. I’m really happy to be here playing with such great players and interact with them and enjoy the experience of being with them.”

Martino said he expects Gomez to play a key role all season.

As for his assessment of the game, Martino said: “The first half we played well, especially the fact that we did not suffer defensively. I thought we could have scored one more goal in the first half. The second half we did not start well, we lost a lot of balls in transition, whereas in the first half they had a hard time taking the ball from us. That got them back into the game, and they could have and probably should have tied the game in the first 25 minutes of the second half. But once we got the second goal the game changed.”

Drake Callender made a few big second-half saves to keep Miami in the lead as Real Salt Lake put increased pressure on the home team.

Martino went with a starting lineup of Messi, Suarez, Taylor, Gomez, Busquets, Julian Gressel, Alba, Sergiy Kryvtsov, Tomas Aviles, DeAndre Yedlin and Drake Callender.

Noah Allen, Jean Mota and David Ruiz entered the game in the 77^th minute, replacing Aviles, Gressel and Taylor. Busquets came out in the 84^th minute with ankle discomfort, but Martino said he doesn’t think it is serious and they took him out as a precaution. Campana replaced Suarez in the 90^th minute.

Watching it all from a suite were MLS Commissioner Don Garber and Apple TV vice president Eddy Cue, who were eager to see what Messi would do for an encore after his league-changing debut season.

“It’s another year for him and his family to get acclimated here in South Florida, to get connected to his teammates, I understand he is very comfortable here, the team is very supportive of him, we couldn’t be more excited,” Garber said. “We should not forget that the best player in the history of the game is in Major League Soccer and everything that brings us.”

The commissioner added that “There’s more buzz about Major League Soccer globally than there even is domestically.”

Cue said he was “shocked” with how quickly Messi had an impact on MLS and the perception of soccer in this country.

“I knew he would make a difference, but I thought it would take some time,” Cue said. “He moved the needle really fast on a global perspective and U.S. perspective. I did not appreciate the power and reach he had. If I were writing a script for a movie, I couldn’t write it any better than we he does. It’s amazing to see.”

The team heads cross country to California for a Sunday match against the Los Angeles Galaxy. Martino said he expects to use a similar starting lineup Sunday. He added that center back Nico Freire, who did not play Wednesday as he recovered from a nagging knee injury, will travel. Tickets for that game are the hottest-selling of the season so far on StubHub, with re-sale prices ranging from $250 to $7,820.