How Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets could reverse Inter Miami’s MLS struggles

We know a couple of things about Inter Miami as MLS breaks from league play for the All-Star game and the Leagues Cup.

First, we know that they’re bad. Like, really bad. 

Inter Miami is currently leading in the race for the Wooden Spoon, an “award” given to the MLS team that finishes with the fewest number of points at the end of the regular season. Miami has the worst expected goal differential per 90 minutes in the league (-0.61) according to FBref, and is currently in the midst of an 11-game winless run in MLS that included a seven-game losing streak. 

Second, we know that Inter Miami will be adding the greatest soccer player on the planet (or at least one of them!) to their team. Messi has signed for Inter Miami, and he’ll be joined by his former FC Barcelona teammate Sergio Busquets. With Messi’s legendary playmaking ability and Busquets’ elite passing vision, Inter Miami will enjoy an obvious talent boost once those two start suiting up, which could be as soon as this Friday in the Leagues Cup opener against Cruz Azul.

Adding Tata Martino as manager, as Miami did last month, will also be a boost – the Argentine has a history working with Messi and Busquets, and also knows MLS well from his title-winning time at Atlanta United.

But what do we know about what’s actually wrong with Miami this season? Why have the players struggled so much in 2023? And how should Messi and Busquets fit into the equation to help them turn things around in time to snag a playoff spot?

Let’s dive in and answer those questions ahead of what will be the wildest summer in MLS history.

Miami’s personnel issues

Things started to unravel for Inter Miami just weeks into the regular season.

Up against New York City FC in the third week of the season, key defensive midfielder Gregore went down with a foot injury after a heavy challenge from former Miami attacker Matías Pellegrini. The initial recovery timeline projected that Gregore, who started 30 games in 2022, would be out through at least the middle of September.

Just over one month later, Gregore’s midfield partner Jean Mota went down with a long-term injury of his own: Mota, who started 33 games in 2022, suffered a knee injury against the Columbus Crew at the end of April. The initial recovery timeline projected Mota would be out until at least September, though he could miss the entire rest of the year. 

Without the two Brazilians anchoring the squad, Inter Miami lost what was supposed to be its biggest asset coming into 2023: Compact defending. 

Building this asset was very intentional. Heading into the year, Miami lacked a creative playmaker, purposely leaving a Messi-sized hole among the starters. So, faced with the difficult task of winning games with an incomplete squad, Inter Miami’s best path towards sustainable success for the first chunk of the season was always going to be pragmatic, disciplined defending: Don’t step too far forward, don’t get exposed, and let veteran midfielders take care of business.

With Gregore and Mota’s mixture of defensive range and capable ball progression, Miami had some success winning the ball and attacking quickly on the break. In the first two full games of the season (the only ones with a healthy Gregore and Mota) Miami scored four goals, allowed zero, averaged 46% possession, and collected six points. Things were looking good!

That is, until injuries left Inter Miami looking like a shell of their former selves.

The club signed 31-year-old Ecuadorian defensive midfielder Dixon Arroyo in April to help add cover in that part of the field, but it hasn’t been enough to paper over the cracks. Homegrown players have been forced into action in midfield and have often failed to keep up with the speed of play in MLS. 

According to FBref, Miami allows more goals per 90 than all but three teams in MLS (1.55) and more non-penalty xG per 90 than any team in MLS (1.52). 

Those numbers are to say nothing of Inter Miami’s attacking problems, which have also been incredibly apparent. 

Striker Leonardo Campana and MLS legend Josef Martinez, who signed for Miami in the offseason, both rely on service to score goals. Without a capable playmaker, or even stable ball progressors like Gregore and Mota, they have seven goals and have been starved for touches. Both players are averaging the lowest number of touches in the box in their recorded MLS careers. Campana is averaging 3.66 touches per 90 in the box (down from 4.09 in his first MLS season) and Martinez is averaging 3.13 (the lowest of his recorded MLS career, excluding his one appearance in the 2020 season).

Campana and Martinez’s attacking struggles apply to the whole team. Inter Miami currently averages the lowest non-penalty xG per 90 in MLS (0.78), according to FBref. 

With injuries to important members of their spine and the need to keep Messi’s seat warm, Miami’s personnel problems have them limping through the 2023 campaign.

Miami’s tactical issues

Inter Miami’s lack of central players has hurt them more than anything else this year. Still, there are some very real tactical issues facing the team right now, either as a result of or in addition to their personnel problems.

Defensively, Inter Miami tries to be proactive. They prefer to press high or to defend in a mid-block rather than setting up shop inside their own third. Unfortunately, they’re not very good at controlling space or starting attacks after they move forward to win the ball.

They’re ninth in MLS right now in passes per defensive action (PPDA, a statistic that measures how many passes a team allows outside of their defensive third before engaging the ball) with 11.3, according to Opta. However, Miami has created fewer shots (just 14 so far this year) from high turnovers than any team in the league. They have a tendency to leave big gaps between players when they move up to press, which can leave them under-manned in central midfield.

You can see some of those gaps on this goal from Orlando City in Miami’s 3-1 loss to the Lions in May. It only takes two passes to carve right through Miami.

That's what we like! 🥰

📺 Watch #MIAvORL on #MLSSeasonPass on @AppleTV: https://t.co/bj83EUml6V pic.twitter.com/43h0MV73lw

— Orlando City SC (@OrlandoCitySC) May 21, 2023

In attack, Miami’s missing playmaker is a near-constant problem in the final third. But with Messi inbound, that problem isn’t worth hashing out here. A bigger issue – one that could have major ramifications even after reinforcements arrive this summer – is how slowly Inter Miami moves the ball in possession.

Regardless of whether they’re playing out of a back four or a back three, Inter Miami pass at a snail’s pace. They move the ball upfield at the second slowest speed in all of MLS: 1.14 meters per second, according to Opta.

Under former manager Phil Neville and now under interim manager Javier Morales, Miami settle into these long, sustained possession sequences that lead to nothing in the attack. Here’s just one example from the team’s most recent game, a 4-1 loss to the Philadelphia Union. If you want to get angry watching soccer, I really can’t recommend this video enough.

pic.twitter.com/k75cvi2pcD

— _ (@21LBRB) June 26, 2023

Here are just some of the issues with Miami’s work on the ball in that sequence, as timed in the score bug up top.

• 7:32: After winning possession in their own half, Miami’s players simply walk into their possession shape, rather than driving upfield to attack in transition. This lets Philadelphia get back into its defensive shape.
• 8:01: Instead of bouncing the ball inside to David Ruiz, Miami chooses to rotate possession along the backline. This, again, lets Philadelphia stay in its defensive shape.
• 8:20: Robert Taylor’s lack of movement on the right wing keeps everything in front of Philadelphia’s backline, forces his team to play backward, and leads to a turnover.

Sure, an elite playmaker like Messi will help turn Miami’s nothing-possessions into something-possessions. But the rest of the team will still have to move the ball, and themselves, to create the kinds of gaps that other attacking players who aren’t Messi can exploit.

How the new arrivals fit in

All of this begs questions: Where do Messi and Busquets fit into this mess? And how much will they help clean things up?

Positionally, the answer to that first question is simple. 

Messi will fit right in either as a pure No. 10 at the tip of midfield or in one of the halfspaces as part of a three-forward frontline. He’s played both of those roles to near-perfection throughout his career and will transform Miami’s attacking play in the final third from the second he steps on the field. Busquets will slot into the No. 6 position, becoming a deep-lying playmaker with Arroyo next to him for some defensive cover.

In terms of how much Messi and Busquets will help clean things up? Well, that answer is much more complicated.

It’s impossible to imagine Miami moving the ball quite so slowly with Messi and Busquets, two elite possession players, in the starting lineup. Messi will demand the ball, and the very real pressure of not finding the best player of all time immediately after he’s called for it will motivate even the slowest passer in Miami’s squad. Busquets, for his part, may be the smoothest, smartest No. 6 to ever play the game. He keeps the ball moving at the base of midfield with subtle body feints and disguised passes.

Of any pair of players in the world, Messi and Busquets are perhaps best suited to help Miami’s passing problems. Still, there’s a limit to what two players can do to speed up possession play. We’ll find out exactly what that limit is later this year.

Moving further upfield, Messi will fill Inter Miami’s creative void. The team literally left the No. 10 shirt unassigned in hopes of giving it to Messi, and have been missing a true creative attacker all season. Martinez and Campana, in particular, will benefit from Messi’s arrival — you can expect them to start getting ahold of the ball in the box again.

Even with the attacking improvement that will come from Messi and Busquets, Inter Miami will still have major defensive issues. 

Messi, 36, and Busquets, 34, have never been known for their range or work rate. However, they’ve always been on teams that control the ball, which has limited their need to track back and defend. Playing for an Inter Miami team that lacks the talent to implement an all-out attacking style like Barcelona, PSG, Spain or Argentina, they’ll face more transition moments than ever before. 

Sure, there will be some defensive benefit as a result of Miami’s impending attacking improvement. They’ll lose the ball less — or at least they’ll lose it in better positions higher up the field and away from their own goal. But Messi and Busquets won’t come close to fixing their new team’s leaky defensive structure. They’re either one new midfield signing or a few months of injury rehab away from finding some stability without the ball.

Now that Messi and Busquets have arrived in Miami, we’ll get to witness the weirdest tactical experiment in MLS’s already lengthy series of weird tactical experiments.

We’ll see moments of attacking magic from Miami, followed by an opposing counterattack that goes right down their spine for a chance at the other end. We’ll see incisive possession play for the first time in months, followed by a missed opportunity to break lines. Finding a balance between fixing the attack and salvaging the defense won’t be easy. Frankly, it might not even be possible.

Even with obvious spots in the lineup for Messi and Busquets, and with clear paths for them to improve the team, there are plenty of pitfalls ahead of Inter Miami.

(Top photo: David S. Bustamante/Soccrates/Getty Images))