"When you are eliminated from the playoffs in the quarterfinals, the season cannot be considered a success. We had good times and bad. When you think about where we were last November, we made a lot of progress.
"But if you think about our expectations that we had for these playoffs, we obviously fell short."
That was Inter Miami head coach Tata Martino on Saturday night. You know exactly what happened on Saturday night.
Let’s talk about their 2024 season:
The No. 1 story of the 2024 MLS regular season was Inter Miami’s chase for the Supporters’ Shield, and with it, the single-season points record set three years ago by the New England Revolution. Leading the chase was Lionel Messi, the greatest player in the sport’s history, along with three of his closest friends from his (their) glory days at FC Barcelona.
It was not always pretty, and since Messi missed a ton of time via both injury and international duty, it was not always smooth. There were entire months where the Herons were hanging on by a thread, and entire games – at RBNY, at Monterrey and at Cincinnati – where they were roadkill.
But mostly they had such overwhelming attacking talent, both in the starting XI and off the bench, that they reliably won the high-leverage moments so many games are decided by. Even without Messi, it was the same formula time and again.
And so 1-0 deficits didn’t matter. Hell, sometimes 2-0 deficits didn’t matter. The Herons would still create chances, and they would still score. They collected an absurd 31 points from losing positions this year, Messi and Luis Suárez both performed at an MVP-caliber clip, a few of the young players were very good, and they took 21 of the 27 points available to them down the stretch to break New England’s record. A whopping 74 points. Book it.
Inter Miami didn’t do it in a commanding or particularly convincing fashion, but they won the Shield and carved their names into the very top of the record books. Job No. 1, done.
I’m writing this post-mortem about a month earlier than I thought I’d be. And that’s because Miami were secretly a pretty mid team team disguised as a good one, as the attacking talent papered over so many cracks. In short: I couldn’t possibly bring myself to pick against Messi.
Relying entirely on winning high-leverage moments, but unable to institute any pitch control with or without the ball? Being easy to play through no matter the personnel or formation? It didn’t matter for this team.
And then suddenly, it did:
It was a season-long walk on a tightrope across a chasm. And when the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs came, Atlanta United pushed them in.
The underlying numbers were flashing warning signs all year long that this Miami side 1) turned the ball over a lot, and 2) were disastrous basically every time they did so. It’s how Monterrey smoked them in the Concacaf Champions Cup, how Columbus smashed them in Leagues Cup, and how their season ended in the MLS Cup Playoffs.
Now, there was still a bit of flukiness to the loss – Brad Guzan played out of his mind, and Atlanta’s game-winner came under unusual (hilarious) circumstances – but the way it happened was also how virtually all of their losses this year happened. So it wasn’t totally out of the blue.
Job No. 2, undone.
Messi & Friends took all the headlines, but Diego Gómez was, when available, the best young player in the league. Federico Redondo was more up and down, but was nonetheless impressive for a young player in a new league. Tomás Avilés was honestly pretty bad, but he soaked up minutes in a backline beset by injuries.
Benjamin Cremaschi wasn’t quite as influential as last year, but given the influx of talent into the roster, he didn't really have to be. Same with fellow homegrown David Ruiz. Both guys played real minutes, though, often in big moments, and brought much more good than bad.
The same is true for homegrown defenders Noah Allen and Ian Fray. Allen was pressed into service both at left back and left center back, and mostly performed admirably. Fray, on the heels of a third ACL recovery, honestly seemed to be on the verge of winning a starting job before tearing his meniscus. He was excellent.
So was SuperDraft pick Yannick Bright, who had fully won a starting job at d-mid by the home stretch, covering ground the aged Sergio Busquets couldn’t. Fellow SuperDraft pick Leo Afonso provided significant, meaningful minutes throughout the summer.
The Herons won the Shield with their top-end talent. But they also won it with an absurd amount of depth, much of it under 25. That bodes extremely well for next season.
- Lionel Messi (AM/RW): He’s likely about to win Landon Donovan MLS MVP despite playing only about half the season. He's still the GOAT, and everything should be built around him. If he plays 30 games next year, this team will break the points record again.
- Luis Suárez (FW): I never bought the “oh I’m so injured I can barely play” line. He was awesome all year.
- Jordi Alba (LB): An attacking force whose Vulcan mind meld with Messi is still as strong as ever.
- Federico Redondo (CM): Showed some positive signs, and now needs to take a step forward as an orchestrator.
- Sergio Busquets (DM): Dude is still a genius, especially in possession. Can they rest him more selectively next season?
There will probably be two big departures from this season’s rotation, as Gómez is reportedly on his way to Brighton for something close to $20 million this winter. The other one, I’m assuming, will be veteran Julian Gressel. He was more or less a written-in-pen starter until the playoffs, at which point he inexplicably found himself an unused sub in all three games.
It made zero sense. And it was an especially bad omission when they were desperately searching for a goal late in Game 3 vs. Atlanta. Anyone who watched last year’s Eastern Conference Final knows how valuable Gressel is in that exact situation.
Anyway, I’ve got to assume he’ll be shopped, and if he’s shopped, there will be interest, and if there’s interest… well, it doesn’t make much sense for Miami to have a guy on $1.1 million exiled from the rotation. Especially when there are teams (Nashville and Chicago come to mind) who could use exactly what Gressel brings.
Moving Gressel, using the GAM from a Gómez sale and declining a few contract options should open up plenty of money to rebuild the central defense. They also technically opened a third DP slot this year, which… is that how Suárez is coming back in 2025? Or is it for Neymar, with Suárez on TAM again?
The point is, whoever’s calling the roster-building shots – I suspect Chris Henderson could be a prime target for Atlanta United's open CSO role – should make this team both better balanced and more cohesive next year.
They are the favorites to win the Shield again. They are the favorites to win MLS Cup. They are among the favorites to win Concacaf Champions Cup.
The pressure is on. The clock is ticking. That’s the way it goes when you’ve got the GOAT and a trophy cabinet in need of filling.
