Messi's Miami Move Continues A U.S. Soccer Tradition

A surprising number of foreign superstars have played in America late in their careers.

Another day, another bombshell headline from the world of global sports. Today’s stunner was the news that Lionel Messi would be coming to America to play for Inter Miami CF of the MLS upon leaving Paris Saint-Germain.

"I have made the decision that I am going to Miami,” Messi said. “I still don't have it agreed upon 100 percent and a few things are needed, but, well, we decided to continue my path there."

Once the t’s are crossed and the i’s dotted, Messi will continue one of the finest traditions in U.S. soccer: An aging foreign-born superstar making the move to America late in his career.

The blueprint for this was provided, of course, by Messi’s new (co-?) owner David Beckham, whose 2007 departure from Real Madrid set the stage for the then-31-year-old midfielder to join the Los Angeles Galaxy in a move that significantly added to the MLS’s aggregate star power. (At the time, it rather reminded me of Wayne Gretzky’s move from the Edmonton Oilers to the L.A. Kings, with both helping to put an unfamiliar sport on the map in America.) Beckham scored 18 goals with 31 assists in 98 games with L.A., and more importantly he elevated the profile of both his team and league — and of course, himself in the process.

But comb back even further through history, and we find plenty of other examples of superstars making the move to the U.S. after excelling in Europe, South America and elsewhere.

According to the International Federation of Football History & Statistics, there have been 13 players who scored 500 or more total goals (across league, cup, continental and international competitions) and ended their career since 1968 — the first season of the North American Soccer League, the U.S.’s first successful major soccer league. Of those 13, Messi will be the seventh to play some amount of his career in America, when he makes his Miami debut:

Just behind Messi on that ranking is the late, great Pelé, whose decision to come out of semi-retirement and play for the NASL’s New York Cosmos remains possibly the seminal moment in the history of popularizing soccer in the United States.

So Messi will be in good company. That will be true not only in terms of talent — the guy is one of the most impossibly great athletes in any sport, ever — but also the phase of his career the 35-year-old currently occupies.

Excluding Messi, the average player on the list above who came to America did it after playing 76% of all the senior-level games they would ever appear in. And even that number is skewed some by the fact that Hugo Sánchez played for the San Diego Sockers indoor team on loan from his club in Mexico City as a 21-year-old. If we look at how many games Sánchez played before a proper stint with the MLS’s Dallas Burn much later on, he was 95% of the way into his career by then — and our overall non-Messi average would rise to 88%.

But there’s one thing you can still say about Messi: He’s not washed up. Though his time with PSG came to a turbulent end off the field, he still ranked fourth in Ligue 1 in goals + assists per 90 minutes this past season. Oh, and there was that whole matter of winning the Golden Ball while scoring 7 goals in 7 games and leading Argentina to its first World Cup title of the Messi era this past December.

If Messi can even bring a fraction of that star power to Miami, he’ll add to the ever-increasing tradition of well-established soccer megastars coming to America to help grow the game stateside.

Filed under: Soccer