FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – It was hard to miss Jonathan Urbaez at the buzzing tailgate hosted by Inter Miami CF’s supporters’ groups just outside DRV PNK Stadium before Friday’s Leagues Cup match vs. Cruz Azul.
Clad from head to toe in pink camouflage gear with a boonie hat, combat boots and a pretty realistic flak jacket in matching colors with his Instagram handle – he’d like you to know it’s @pistolgrippoet – and the names of several IMCF supporters’ groups splashed across it, Urbaez naturally draws the eye, even in a sea of pink and black Herons gear.
The club and the rich supporter culture that revolves around it is a central part of his life, and Miami’s results on the field in their first three and a half seasons have made for more downs than ups.
“It really tests your dedication to the team when you're like, ‘OK, I'm here hours ahead of the game, setting up stuff, we've got people cooking, we've got people bringing in merchandise, all that organizing, and then we go out and get spanked,’” he told MLSsoccer.com with a wry smile. “And it's like, ‘OK, we're doing it again next week. Let's go.’
“That's just the dedication and the passion that we have for the team. Most of us here have wanted a team in MLS for, at this point, nearly a decade. But you know, it was like six or seven years of building and organizing supporters for a team that didn't even exist.”
Some of these hardcores have been around even longer. Robert Schrotenboer is clad in the yellow-and-red striped jersey of the now-defunct Fort Lauderdale Strikers, who competed in both versions of the North American Soccer League at Lockhart Stadium, the venue that once stood on the site now occupied by DRV PNK and IMCF’s adjacent training facility.
“We had season tickets for Strikers for years when the kids were younger,” explained the West Palm Beach resident. “So old-school Lockhart, we've been there. And then we got season tickets here when this team started, and still going.”
His wife Claire, wearing pink Dr. Martens boots and holding a matching umbrella for shade from the blazing tropical sun, points to an adjacent lot as she recalls the Herons’ humble early days.
“We call ourselves Green Lot Gang because we used to just park all over there,” she said. “And that's where [club owners David] Beckham and all the Mas brothers, they would hang out with us over there. So it was lovely. We're going to miss those days.
“Great friends. This is how we met a lot of people, and people have ended up traveling internationally together, and it's been really cool.”
“Incredibly surreal”
Everything changed, of course, on June 7, when Lionel Messi publicly announced his intention to make IMCF his next home.
When the most popular player in the world finally put pen to his MLS contract earlier this month, it shot Inter Miami into the stratosphere, drawing global attention and immediately, exponentially multiplying the scale of everything – demand and prices for tickets, interest in supporters’ group membership, local relevance, you name it.
“It's the weirdest thing in the world,” said Gerard Williams of The Siege supporters' club. “So we had a meeting with the owner, [Jorge Mas], and he kept on being adamant that he was going to beat out the Saudi deal, he was going to beat out the Barcelona deal. But to see [Messi] actually on the field Sunday holding up the jersey, it was incredibly surreal.
“And listen, a lot of people see him as a messianic savior. He's going to need to be – we’re in last place! So we need all the help we can, but it's really awesome to see him here.”
Many, if not most, members of IMCF’s array of supporters’ groups, which collectively refer to themselves as La Familia to emphasize their common bond, have been around since well before the idea of Messi in pink was just a pipe dream. Despite the limited successes on the field, they’ve nurtured a sturdy and steadily-growing culture that reflects the region’s kaleidoscopic diversity and provides a party atmosphere while retaining, yes, a family vibe.
“It blew up. It tripled,” said Walter Sarrafiore, a co-founder and bandleader of Vice City 1896 whose roots are in San Lorenzo, Argentina. “We started as a group of friends [in 2018]. We started as 20 people, and all of a sudden, we grew, we grew [to] 200, 300, and now it's more than 600 people and they all share the same passion. We got our families, our kids."
A completely different animal
Now, what might’ve once felt like the cult devotees of a low-fi indie band is suddenly the hottest ticket in town.
“We are super happy. But as a supporters' group, we have a territorial mind,” said Roberto Rivadeneira of the Southern Legion, an Ecuadorian-American who’s lived in south Florida since 1986. “We have to adapt to the new people coming in and accept the fact that new people are going to come in and probably have them join our groups, and share the party together, of course.
“They call them ‘bandwagon.’ They might be bandwagons, but they may become Inter Miami fans in the future, thanks to Messi.”
It’s a welcome, but dramatic shift that will take some getting used to.
“It's a difficult line to balance between your whole way of life, and your weekend activities and culture, completely exploding. But then also realizing like, at the end of the day, we're all fans,” said Urbaez. “So you need to welcome the people who yeah, may be here only because of Messi, but they're still buying tickets the way you do, paying for parking, walking inside, buying jerseys, all of that.
“I feel like we're doing a good job of keeping that balance. At the end of the day, though, on a personal level, it is like ‘damn, everything is going to be different.’ This used to be a very intimate, closed environment. And now it's a completely different animal.”
Green Lot Gang member Tracy Longin is a regular at Miami matches with her husband and their 10-year-old son TJ. They found themselves charmed by the warmth and accessibility of the Herons’ players, and even owners, compared to their college football fandom as University of Florida graduates.
“This is awesome because it's like the vibe of a much bigger, more prominent team, but we also love the intimacy that we had,” she said, gesturing at the throngs of fans old and new. “It's surreal, but it's also a little bittersweet, because now we know we'll never have what we had before, which was the real intimate feel, but it's exciting to see the team grow and now like thrive. I mean, look at this. This is wild.”
Hottest ticket in town
The Schrotenboers laughed when the turnabout was mentioned.
“Suddenly everybody in my office wants the tickets that I was giving them months ago,” said Claire with a chuckle.
“We’ve had four season tickets for three years. We usually take our kids when they're around and things like that, but if not, we'll ask friends,” added Robert. “But there's times when no one's going, and we're eating those tickets. And we don't care. But now, everyone's out of the woodwork.”
Sarrafiore is a familiar figure to many at the tailgate, and his passion is evident as he lays out the scope of a pregame festival that will only grow in the coming weeks and years.
“For the matches today, Vice City 1896 has 600 people. Total, between sections 108 and 109, which is La Familia, it's 1,200 people.
“This takes a lot of hands,” he explained. “Even though you got five to 10 guys that do the logistics and the thinking behind the scenes, we have at least 40 kids that come here every game, three, four hours before the game. They set up all the flags, they set up the tailgates, the grill, they start cooking – we grill around 500 to 700 sausages every game. So I mean, we're excited. We love this. We love that the people are coming and they're getting contagious with this disease.”
With such a spike in demand, being a Miami fan will inevitably get pricier. For the most part, that’s a worthy tradeoff for even the OG supporters.
“Everyone that I was talking is like ‘wow, so expensive,’ because I don't know, I get the tickets before, it's $36, now it’s $200, $250 and plus, right?” said Yvonne Meade, Rivadeneira’s cousin. “But still, it's cheap to pay to see Messi.”
“Here for the show”
The $10,000 question is just how quickly Messi, his old friends Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, head coach Gerard “Tata” Martino and the rest of the Herons can turn things around. Friday’s incredibly dramatic last-gasp win over Cruz Azul was Miami’s first victory in all competitions since the day Messi announced his choice of IMCF over Paris Saint-Germain, Barça and a reported billion-dollar offer from Saudi Arabia.
Can the GOAT really work that kind of magic every week on a team heretofore mired in misery? Could an unlikely late run into the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs somehow materialize?
“I'm not going to say no,” said Alex Bello, who made the 450-mile journey from Tallahassee for Friday’s match. “It's not impossible. We’ve got to be realistic. It's tough to pull out of that one, being as far behind as we are, but we do play a lot of the teams that are in front of us. So statistically, it's not impossible, but I'm also realistic. He's coming into a new team, a new culture, different players. Tata’s got to bring his system in here.
“Either way, it's going to be electrifying, man. I'm here for the show. And what 2024 is going to bring, who knows?”
Bello fell in love with Inter Miami and the supporter experience when some of his college friends from Florida State convinced him to join them on a cross-country trip to Los Angeles to attend the Herons’ inaugural match in 2020, vs. LAFC.
“I was hooked immediately,” he said. “So I don't get to go to all the games because I'm 500 miles away. But anytime I'm nearby, I'm at a game if there’s one happening."
“It's such an exciting environment. I can't even explain to you, just the chants, everything,” Bello added. “I've been to soccer games before, you sit by as a spectator, but when you're in there singing, it's a whole ‘nother level, and I really wish people would get to experience that. I've been to games all over the world, I went to [UEFA] Champions League games and stuff like that … it’s nothing like I've ever experienced over here [at DRV PNK].”
Urbaez pointed to the unusual divergence between how IMCF is now perceived with Messi in the fold – practically a superclub, particularly overseas – with its mostly sobering MLS results to date. He professes his faith in chief soccer officer and sporting director Chris Henderson, who’s done important work to overhaul a flawed roster despite the restrictions imposed by sanctions for roster-rule violations in year one.
“I'm a little bit of a pessimist,” said Urbaez. “But yeah, we're on the way. If we keep building and Chris Henderson keeps cooking the way he always has, anything's possible.”
Many others have a more bullish outlook, like Fort Lauderdale resident Tony Burgess.
“Of course,” he said when asked if playoffs are attainable. “You got Messi.
“From what I've seen, listen, we've had a lot of [scoring] chances, a lot of opportunities,” he continued, “and we just missed them. They've been a little bit outside. So bringing in some solid strikers that are going to finish, it's going to make the difference.”
Even if Miami fall short, there’s little doubt that Messi will make it appointment viewing just the same.
“It's going to be great. Everybody's going to be watching,” said Burgess. “It’s the show.”
