FORT LAUDERDALE — The final act, the one everyone came to see, had Lionel Messi carrying the trophy over to his Inter Miami teammates late Saturday afternoon. This is how he’s done it everywhere he’s been, the captain and a trophy, and now he did at Chase Stadium.
“Mes-si!” the crowd chanted.
The trophy looked nearly as big as Messi as he walked on the makeshift stage amid his teammates. But there, in that moment, as he held the Major League Soccer championship trophy aloft, as confetti dropped and fireworks flew, Messi didn’t look like the league’s marketing machine or the world’s most recognizable athlete.
He just looked like a star happy to win again. His smile said that much, as did his hugs with teammates and that laugh he carried all over the field for the next hour as family and friends joined in the celebration.
“This is the moment I had been waiting for, and that we, as a team, were waiting for,” Messi said after the 3-1 win against Vancouver. “It’s very beautiful for all of us. They deserved it.”
It didn’t matter if this wasn’t anything close to the biggest of his career. It mattered that he’d won again — that he wanted to win like this here. It mattered more to Inter Miami, sure, because this was the team’s first title and it confirmed all the attention of the past couple of years.
This was a MLS dream matchup, Messi against Vancouver’s Tomas Müller, the German star coming to North America for his final chapter just as Messi has to South Florida.
“They said soccer would never make it in America,’’ MLS commissioner Don Garber said during the trophy ceremony. “Inter Miami fans, has soccer made it?”
Messi’s toeprints were all over this game. He got the opening goal started at midfield by passing to a breaking Tadeo Allende, whose crossing pass was deflected into the net by Vancouver’s Edier Ocampo.
After Vancouver tied it, Messi had a takeaway, then threaded a pass to send Rodrigo DePaul in alone on goal to make it 2-1 in the 72nd minute. DePaul was another Inter Miami special, an Atletico Madrid star who fit under the MLS salary-cap rules in midseason by saying he was just coming for this pro-rated season.
Finally, there was the coupe de Messi on this title game. He played a ball off his chest, and to his left foot, which popped a pass over the Vancouver defense in stoppage time. It was Allende sent in alone on goal this time. His goal in the 96th minute started the celebration.
Messi ran over and hugged him. Inter Miami coach Javier Mascherano ran on the field and hugged Jordi Alba until they toppled to the grass.
“These games, they’re decided in a few moments,’’ Vancouver coach Jesper Sorensen said. “And when you play Miami they have players who can take them in those few moments.”
You can pick when this celebration started. Maybe it was when David Beckham picked Miami as his ownership destination in 2018. Maybe it was when baseball passed on Jorge Mas for Derek Jeter in 2017 and Mas and brother Jose bought into Inter Miami and then became full owners with Beckham in 2021.
Maybe it was the summer of 2023 when Beckham was awoken at 5 a.m. in Japan, saying the five-year recruitment of Messi was completed. It was a marketing venture as much as a sporting adventure, and it’s been a success by whatever metric you use.
The league’s social media footprint went from two million to 50 million followers with Messi aboard. Apple TV announced more than 300,000 new subscribers after Messi signed.
Inter Miami has sold out games at Chase Stadium even while raising ticket prices about four-fold. This was the final scheduled game here as the new stadium awaits in Miami. Another assist from Messi, who signed on for three more seasons.
Some of his friends are going. Alba and Sergio Busquets, 37, announced their impending retirement earlier this season and played their final game Saturday. Luis Suarez, 36, was benched during the first-round series against Nashville and might be done.
The exit of big names is part of the MLS story. But Messi isn’t leaving. He didn’t need a MLS title. But his smile in the aftermath showed, as Mascherano said, “He came here to win this cup.”
