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Dave Hyde: Everything starts again with Messi as Inter Miami puts on show in season opener

Dave Hyde, South Florida Sun-Sentinel on

Published in Soccer

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Believe it or not — and I’m not sure I do, even on replay — Salt Lake defender Andrew Brody had the best view of the Lionel Messi experience on an opening night that showed what to expect this Inter Miami season.

Which is anything.

Or maybe everything?

“If anybody was skeptical about what this team can do, I think the first half showed them,’’ Inter Miami coach Tata Martino said after Miami’s 2-0 win against Real Salt Lake.

In the middle of it all, still the most important figure in the world of soccer, was the 36-year-old who seemed unhurried, even demonstrably patient, as the night accelerated around him.

Messi made it all happen again on this first night back, and that doesn’t just mean on the field. It was the continued craziness around this team. Has any team — any league, really — been built by one player?

 

South Florida has had LeBron James with the Miami Heat, though he had prime-time superheroes in Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Dan Marino carried the Miami Dolphins franchise for a decade, though those teams never won anything important.

Messi has picked up the MLS as and twirled it on his marketing fingers. That’s why they’re playing in the newly named Chase Stadium. It’s why MLS Commissioner Don Garber was on hand to say, “There’s more buzz around Major League Soccer globally than there even is domestically.”

It’s why Apple TV vice president Eddy Chu admitted to being “shocked” by how many subscribers Messi brought since last summer to their MLS package (he declined to give the number).

The anecdotal evidence offered an unchanged world in the opener, too. A line of 100 people waited to enter the Inter Miami store to buy a pink jersey an hour before the game like there was Wednesday — and as the racks of jerseys showed, the typical buy was No. 10. Messi. The line stretched to 200 people a half-hour before the game.

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