All eyes on Messi, teammates as Inter Miami opens MLS season at home vs. Real Salt Lake

The 2024 MLS season kicks off Wednesday night, and there is only one game on the schedule, Inter Miami vs. Real Salt Lake, which is fitting because all eyes are on Lionel Messi and his Miami teammates.

Messi and his former FC Barcelona buddies Luis Suarez, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba enter their first full season together in the league and despite not making the playoffs last year, Inter Miami games are the hottest-selling MLS tickets so far in 2024.

According to Vivid Seats’ latest data, Inter Miami makes up 19 of the top 20 most in-demand MLS games this season. Vivid Seats ticket buyers are traveling over 900 miles on average this week to witness Inter Miami’s home opener. It costs 135 percent more to see Messi’s Inter Miami this season than the reigning MLS Cup champions, Columbus Crew.

It’s the same story at StubHub, where Inter Miami is the No. 1 in-demand team at the start of the season, appearing in all the 25 top-selling games. Ten are home games, 15 are on the road. Fans from 44 countries have already purchased Inter Miami tickets, compared to fans from just nine countries at this time last year.

Inter Miami players are wearing a giant crowned anchor on the front of their shirts this season, the logo of sponsor Royal Caribbean cruise line. Perhaps Target might consider sponsoring the back of their jerseys, as every opponent will be aiming for Messi’s team wherever they go.

“The calendars are circled all over the league for that game, especially the home games in the East,” said wingback Julian Gressel, who joined Inter Miami this season from the MLS champion Crew. “Those are the moments I would circle on my calendar if I were to play for a different team for sure. So, we have to expect we’re going to get everyone’s best game.

“The expectations are obviously there when you have the best player in the world on your team, but we’re excited to be on this journey. We have to embrace it and learn how to deal with it. Hopefully, a good start will get us rolling.”

Inter Miami players and coaches have already experienced pressure under the glare of the global spotlight during the preseason. They went on a 24,000-mile, five country world tour with test matches in El Salvador, Dallas, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong and Japan.

Miami won only one of six games and had to endure a PR nightmare in Hong Kong when 40,000 fans booed and demanded refunds after realizing Lionel Messi, ruled out due to injury, would not play.

Despite the grueling travel, minor injuries to Messi, Suarez and Busquets, and Hong Kong controversy, Inter Miami officials, coach Tata Martino and players felt the team benefited from the tour.

“You get the exposure of unbelievable, high-quality opponents that you play in the middle of their seasons after long travel, and that should help us now that we have real matches,” Gressel said. “The past few years, I played preseason games in training jerseys, behind closed doors. This was totally different. We’ve already been tested and exposed on the global stage, and we saw what we had to fix.”

Inter Miami sporting director Chris Henderson said there was value in taking long flights and playing in front of big crowds, even though it meant letting the public see mistakes that are typically made in private during preseason.

“Some of our young guys got to play in environments they normally wouldn’t, under more pressure, and that helped us answer questions about those guys: Can they do it? Can they step in? And you wouldn’t have received that information in a normal preseason setting,” Henderson said. “You can only get so much out of a closed-door scrimmage.”

Martino agreed, saying while the tour was “complicated” the team was able to get real-game experience, keep the club’s business side happy, and come home relatively healthy. He said Messi and Suarez are game-ready heading into the season opener, and if they had to play 90 minutes, they could.

But he warned fans in South Florida and around the rest of MLS that there may be times Messi and his high-profile teammates will not be able to play if there are injury risks. The team is about to embark on a taxing year that includes a minimum of 34 MLS games from February through October, plus the $5 million CONCACAF Champions Cup, Leagues Cup and U.S. Open Cup. And as many as 10 players could be selected to play for their national teams, as well, in various events.

Martino said his job is to win games while managing players’ minutes and he made it abundantly clear he will not put an injured star player on a game roster no matter how many fans bought tickets.

“We can’t be involved with all the things that surround the team,” Martino said. “I want to make it clear that our players will always play when they are healthy, but we saw what happened in Hong Kong. So, the fans from Chicago, Houston, everywhere, should know that injuries are part of soccer. Maybe the injury is serious or minor, but the trainer and coaching staff have to make sure all the players are healthy and be cautious at the moment of making roster decisions, especially because the season is so long.”

He said minor muscular injuries are often day-to-day decisions and wants fans to understand that.

Asked to address expectations that Miami, with its all-star roster, should win every game and trophy at stake, Martino said: “That won’t happen. There are many teams that have excellent rosters and are coming off great season, not just Columbus, which was brilliant, but others, too. We didn’t classify for the playoffs. We understand that with this roster we can do big things, but we don’t consider ourselves an unbeatable team. We have to keep our feet on the ground.”

Alba added: “Yes, there are a lot of name players on this team, but that doesn’t mean anything. We have to show it on the field. Hopefully we can win all the titles, but it won’t be easy.”

The challenge begins Wednesday against Real Salt Lake, a team that made the playoffs last year and is coached by former Miami Fusion and U.S. national team player Pablo Mastroeni.

With potentially up to 60 games if Miami goes deep in all the tournaments, players will be run ragged. One of Inter Miami’s new sponsors is Duracell batteries. If only Messi and his teammates ran on battery.