Being reported by a reporter close to Messi and the BBC now... Messi has decided. His destination: Inter MiamiLeo Messi se va al Inter Miami— Guillem Balague (@GuillemBalague) June 7, 2023 https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/65832658 Apparently Messi didn't trust Barca would be able to register him as a player... 1666440403560669184 is not a valid tweet id if true, good job Mas! Inter Miami's owner said this in 2021 👀 pic.twitter.com/q3tw1PLU3C— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) June 7, 2023
If true, poor Messi. He is going to one of the worst teams in MLS that probably won't make the play offs and his season will end early. It won't start again until March of next year. It's not like Miami can bring in players to make them better.
Colombian news reporting the return of Arango to MLS....RSL record transfer if it happens. 🚨 Cristian ‘Chicho’ Arango (28) será nuevo jugador del #RealSaltLake. El delantero colombiano dejará #Pachuca en una compra récord de 6M$ del club de Utah 🇨🇴🔜🇺🇸👀 Esta semana viajará para firmar su contrato. Una gestión de sus agentes Gianluca De Franco y Nicolás Pareja pic.twitter.com/M4ksykA5Df— Pipe Sierra (@PSierraR) June 7, 2023
The last offer from the Saudi gov' was $400M per year for 3 years. . . he passed on 1.2B!! All the sponsorship deals and % of the team is not going to make up for the Saudi money, but I am glad that someone is finally saying no. And happy for MLS and US soccer.
Y'all can be excited about some other move all you want; RSL hasn't had a viable striker since about 2014 so we're going with this one as the best news of the day.
I'm curious how the transfer fee compares to the $6 million Pachuca paid. Also interesting that this is the second team in 6 months willing to let Chicho go, not sure what to make of it, but interesting.
pic.twitter.com/Om7WTHNkvQ— Messi Media (@LeoMessiMedia) June 7, 2023 🐐— adidas Football (@adidasfootball) June 7, 2023
He might be a headcase, but we need some goals scored over here! He's the player I really wanted over the offseason, but I guess it makes sense that LAFC wouldn't want to sell him to a direct competitor. We got an injured Musovski instead, which seemed pretty lame. I'm not certain what went on behind the scenes, but I'm really interested in how this deal came about. It isn't like Chicho was sucking it up at Pachuca.
Great deal for MLS and apple tv; This will showcase MLS around the world. Curious to see Messi impact on the field; Inter Miami is a crappy team. If they are willing to spend 200m for Messi they might be able to rebuild the whole team. If Messi can improve the level of play this could get interesting. Amazing Saudi Arabia was willing to pay 1b for 3 year contract for him; There is a large Argentinian community in Miami; Some reports say his wife wanted to live in Miami; so live style + connections might have impacted his decision.
His scoring rate is good but he had less than 500 minutes in clausera and was on bench in CCL. I liked him with LAFC. Seemed Cherundolo didn't. Some lafc fans are upset about this but I'm interested in how it turns out. He will be a DP in Salt Lake right?
There are situations where the rules won’t matter. This is one. Miami is gonna be given special considerations with regards to their roster. All the other owners are going to be fine with it. Most fans will be also for the most part. There will be loud self aggrandizing exceptions, but most won’t care. They will deal with it for a couple of years. Barcelona, Riyadh, Paris and Miami. One of these things is not like the other. I’ve been to Riyadh and it’s fine. Actually had some good experiences I won’t forget. Hardcore 4 wheeling in the desert using insane, high quality drivers was incredible. Still, live there for a couple of years? No thanks. Live there for a couple of years for several hundred mill? Hmmmm.
Miami is a crappy team because of the Messi saga to begin with. They went into the winter window planning on the hope that they could sign Messi this summer. That meant that they had to put aside salary space and roster decisions in case this did happen. Unlike PSG or a Saudi team they can't just create salary space out of nowhere (which is easy to do when your salary budget is whatever an oil rich nation decides it wants it to be). They also have to know that they had to be on the up and up since they literally got busted for breaking roster rules a couple years ago. So now they can actually build out the roster the way they want since they know they will have him on the roster. The second issue that they have been poor was that they lost BOTH of their starting center mids to injury in quick succession. Losing Gregore, who was their go to d-mid, has really messed with them. They kept their opponents from scoring in the 3 games he played (only goal was an own goal). They have 1 clean sheet in 16 games since he got injured and that was an Open Cup game against Charleston. There still may be issues but having an attacking player that keeps teams on their back foot can help mitigate that loss at d-mid. Oh, and I'd assume having Tata Martino instead of Phil Neville will probably help too.
They're only 6 points out of the final playoff spot in the East with a game in hand on 4 of the teams above them.
According to CL Merlo on Twitter he is reporting Pachuca bought Arango from LAFC for $2M and now selling him back to MLS for $6M. If this is true this is all due to MLS roster rules. Moving a player out to make cap space/be roster compliant instead of selling him for cash (no GAM, TAM) within MLS for more money isn't good business.