NEW YORK – The sights and sounds of an away trip with Inter Miami are already known a year after the Lionel Messi experience. There is discussion prior to the match about ticket prices and setting attendance records. Fellow travelers on the subway ask Messi-sporting strangers when and where he will play. Fans dressed in the pink of Inter Miami and the light blue and white of Argentina line up in stadiums regardless of location. Vendors line the streets outside stadiums selling counterfeit goods. The cheers for Messi are noticeably louder than those for anyone else, although his teammates occasionally benefit from the domino effect.
This is how Messi’s novelty becomes commonplace, sometimes an exercise in contrasting feelings, as on Saturday in Miami’s 1-1 draw against New York City FC at Yankee Stadium. Those hoping to catch a glimpse of the World Cup winner had fortune on their side: the ankle injury that kept him out for two months was officially a thing of the past, and manager Tata Martino’s minute management drew crowds on Wednesday Atlanta United. was sacrificed this weekend for the one in the Bronx. Simply put, it was an ideal setup for those who put in the effort (and dollars) to be there.
What they saw, however, was a watered-down version of Messi Mania.
Although the MLS credited him with a secondary assist on Leo Campana’s 75th-minute goal, Messi was far from his most magical self. He took just one shot and had fewer than 50 touches in his 90-minute shift, below his average of 4.22 shots per game and around 65 touches. It looked like he was jogging the whole time, not for the first time during an injury-plagued season at age 37. It was part of Miami’s overall disappointing performance at Yankee Stadium, as they mustered just six shots to NYCFC’s 17 and combined for just 0.81 expected goals.
It felt like the natural end to an eight-day, three-match stretch for the team. This isn’t to say the Supporters’ Shield winners will rely solely on Messi, but he can set the tone as Miami balances a mix of Barcelona’s 30-somethings and younger talent – even if manager Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino claims otherwise .
“The performance of the match was good and if it wasn’t for the decision, terrible against it [midfielder] Yannick Bright during the match – we would have won the match,” he said through an interpreter at a post-match press conference, referring to a foul that he said was not called. “The team lacked nothing, but the match lacked a good referee.”
The referees were worth paying attention to, of course, as a choppy play produced far more fouls than moments worth noting, right down to a member of Miami’s staff being sent off the field around the 70th minute. It was a tired, throwaway refrain from a match that was equally memorable regardless of the fanfare. The crowd was packed, but subdued — a far cry from the passionate and equally pro-Miami crowd that attended its first MLS match across the Hudson River a year ago. Although that crowd only got 30 minutes from Messi, they got what their Yankee Stadium equivalent didn’t: a goal from the main attraction.
Perhaps the most impassioned moment of the day came before kick-off, when the NYCFC faithful presented a tifo referencing Barbie, calling the majority of the 44,000-plus spectators “plastic” and demanding that they “become your local club supports’. It offers a critical look at the Messi Effect, which the league and its clubs hope will encourage people to do just that – support their local club – even though there is currently little sign that the people making Messi Mania to what it is, are interested, although it may be too early to tell.
That’s the push-and-pull of Messi Mania, an experience that seemingly depends on one man alone but is rather an exercise in the response he leaves everyone else with. His powers on the field may be waning, and his impact in the stadium is a far cry from what it once was. However, his star has by no means dimmed and remains the one undeniable quality of the Messi effect, no matter how complicated things now become.