Inter Miami changed their head coach, chief soccer officer, a good chunk of their squad and even their kits this winter, with six players departing from last year’s Supporters’ Shield-winning side and 12 new faces arriving.
Old habits die hard for Leo Messi & Co., however, based on their 2025 MLS season opener vs. New York City FC at Chase Stadium Saturday night, a wild affair that extended the Herons’ tendencies towards chaotic drama.
“The reality is that with all the difficulties that we had during this game, there was more than one game within one match: everything favorable to us 15, 20 minutes in, and then everything was against us afterwards,” a philosophical Javier Mascherano told reporters in Spanish in his postgame press conference.
“We have to live with that.”
"The soul of this team"
Miami dominated their guests in the opening phases, a trademark, raking one-two combination between Jordi Alba and Messi leading to a close-range tap-in for center back Tomás Avilés just five minutes in.
Yet they suddenly found themselves under the gun when Avilés – IMCF’s runaway leader in both cautions (13) and ejections (2) last season – received a straight red card for denial of a goal-scoring opportunity, when he yanked down Alonso Martínez just after 23 minutes. NYCFC scored on the ensuing set piece, then surged ahead when Alba’s astonishing backpass 10 minutes after halftime handed Martínez a glorious one-on-one with goalkeeper Oscar Ustari, which he converted clinically.
A 2-1 lead and a man advantage is nowhere near enough of a cushion when facing the GOAT, though. The Pigeons became the latest MLS opponents to learn this when Messi sliced through their lines, deep into the extensive second-half injury time, then slipped a subtle, devastating through ball into the path of debutant Telasco Segovia, the young Venezuelan coolly lifting his finish over the advancing Matt Freese and into the net to snatch a spectacular point for the hosts.
A wide-open 2-2 draw with two galling breakdowns and recurring defensive jitters redeemed by two gorgeous Messi assists? Not a bad encapsulation of the IMCF experience.
“He's the soul of this team,” said Mascherano of Messi, his friend and former teammate with Argentina and FC Barcelona. “You saw this in the pitch. He is as a kid playing, and he doesn't want to lose. So for us, he’s a big, big advantage. So, we need to keep him with this spirit, you know, because it's not just what he does on the pitch, it's what he translates to his teammates, and all that he does.
“With his 37 years, he's not just playing in attack, he helped us in defense, running the center back, running the holding midfielder. So it's magnificent.”
Hard-earned point
Mascherano elected to celebrate the team’s fighting spirit rather than bemoan their self-inflicted wounds, nodding to the influence of the Herons’ Concacaf Champions Cup series vs. Sporting KC, which opened with a in subzero temperatures in Kansas City on Wednesday and will conclude with Tuesday’s second leg in South Florida.
If that equalizer had arrived just a bit sooner, he mused, they might have even pulled out a win.
“I want to emphasize this, because I gave it a lot of value,” said the Argentine manager. “At the end, we had two options: to not struggle, and think about Tuesday, or play ‘til the end. And they decided to struggle to the end, and they had their recompense.
“What do we have to improve? Well, there's always a lot of things to improve, but we'll do it behind closed doors. And I'll repeat - more than that we're screwed because we wanted to win the game at home, this is going to strengthen us.”
Segovia saves the day
The enduring excellence of Miami’s ‘Fab Four’ of Messi, Alba, Luis Suárez and Sergio Busquets is well known; what made last season particularly remarkable was the surprising extent of the contributions from youngsters and role players. Segovia’s instant impact offers the Rosanegra hope of pulling off a similar balancing act again.
“A very high-quality player, and we know what he can contribute, and that is why we decided to get him,” Mascherano said of the 21-year-old attacker, signed from Portuguese club Casa Pia. “He's very young. He has enormous potential, and I believe that when he came in, he did a very good game, he played very well.”
The whole spectacle gave NYCFC’s new coach Pascal Jansen a decent enough introduction to MLS life, even if he and his players had ample reason to rue letting victory slip through their fingers in the dying moments.
“Just a little too short. I think my boys took on the challenge with a brave heart, and they were very courageous,” he said postgame. “I think we controlled some parts of the game the way we wanted to, especially out of possession, even though they went down with one man.”
