Messi Madness in New York City
It was a privilege to witness our Michael Jordan go to work. But what does it all mean for Major League Soccer?
A blind man came to see Lionel Messi. He had his white-and-red cane in one hand, his other arm locked in a companion’s as they walked along the black cement of the concourse amongst the myriad concessions stands at halftime. Was she a fan, and he just came along? Or was he here to let the oceanic roar of the expectant New York crowd wash over him — to bear witness in his own way?
After all, Gretzky was in town. The Michael Jordan of our moment. Messi brought his merry band of La Liga legends to Queens, and they did not disappoint. Sighted or not, everyone here glimpsed something special — and increasingly fleeting — as NYCFC were condemned to sporting destruction by Inter Miami. Messi inevitably played judge, jury, and executioner, and many of the New Yorkers here had come to Citi Field hoping to see exactly that kind of punishment handed down to their hometown team. Not everybody, though.
“Oh yeah? You brought ya kids?” said a wide-set man in NYCFC sky blue as he trundled down the steps towards his seat a few minutes before kickoff, eyeing everybody in pink and black. “Fuck outta here.”
This section to the left behind one goal, down the third-base line if the New York Mets were playing, was about half NYCFC stalwarts. I could hear folks chattering about the season so far, or complaining that the double gin-and-tonic they’d ordered here was weaker than a single at Yankee Stadium, the club’s more regular home court.1 As the stadium announcer read the starting lineups, they shouted out every name and booed the Miami ones. Diagonal across the field, in the right-field stands, fan groups like The Third Rail banged on constantly throughout the game, singing songs about their players and the club.
But there was a whole row of 10 or 11-year-old kids behind me in black or pink Miami shirts crying, “Messi! Messi! Messi!” even before kickoff. At one point, while I was taking in the scene before the match from higher up on the concourse, a grown man behind me went, “Messi! Messi! MESSI! MESSI! MESSI!” He was almost pleading for the great man to come out and for the match to start and for it to all be really real. A crew of five more grown men, all together in matching black Messi #10 kits, were lined up at security when I arrived at the stadium gates.
To be fair, the walk there from the Long Island Rail Road stop was nothing like all that. There were just a couple of Miami shirts sprinkled in with the NYCFCs and the rest of us unaffiliateds. I’m a native New Yorker, but I find it hard to connect with either of the city’s pro teams in this sport. An energy drink in New Jersey or a team linked to Manchester City? It’s not much to choose from.
I’m very much affiliated with New York, however, and it gave me joy to walk the wood slats of the boardwalk-style elevated walkway from train station to stadium, past the vendors selling “Cold beer!” and water out of coolers on the ground in front of them, others hawking Messi kits that were surely 100% authentic. Some of the accents I heard were absolutely the genuine article, and things only improved once I got inside the stadium and the pregame DJ served up a regular diet of Ja Rule and Fat Joe. And when Miami finally came out for their pregame warmup, long after their opponents had taken the field, the villainous out-of-towners were greeted with an eruption of boos.
After the pregame festivities finished and the “LIBERTY OVER VICE” tifo unfurled out in right field2, the match kicked off, and NYCFC had more than a foothold in the first half. Miami rarely troubled the home team’s U.S. international goalkeeper, Matt Freese, and it was the #7 in blue, Nicolás Fernández Mercau, who went crashing in behind the Miami backline on 29 minutes. He turned a defender inside-out and smacked the post.
But even on the back foot, Miami showed their class. Jordi Alba was motoring up and down the left, and Messi nearly found him in behind the NYCFC defense with some glorious touch on a chipped pass. Sergio Busquets3 was peerless in midfield, demonstrating in real time the difference between professional players and the all-time greats. Watching him waltz through the blue shirts, scarcely breaking a sweat, I was reminded of sitting in a high-school gym in Latvia while reporting a story on Kristaps Porzingis, watching his NBA friends scrimmage with his old buddies from Spanish pro ball and seeing the levels. No wonder Riqui Puig, a star in Major League Soccer, once told me, “I’m going to explain to my sons that I played with Busi.” He’d turn away from two or three markers at a time with a trademark drag-back or chop-turn before spraying the ball to the outside or through the lines.
It was one of the latter line-splitters that opened up the scoring, except it came from the #10 in black after Busquets found him in a pocket of space between New York’s midfield and defensive line. Messi took it and turned in one motion, letting it zip across his body onto his left foot as he swiveled to face a defender who’d left the line to confront him in space. That turned out to be a poor decision: Before Thiago Martins could get set, a through ball was through his legs into the gap he’d left for Miami’s Baltasar Rodríguez run into. The 22-year-old Argentine latched onto his compatriot’s perfectly weighted ball and slotted it past Freese.
It was a couple of minutes before halftime, and Citi Field blasted off, though it wasn’t all raucous applause. There were plenty of boos, too, and earlier in the half, there were some mocking cheers — the kind of “Heeeey”s you hear from English fans — when Messi’s poor touch near the sideline sent the ball out of play. At times, the rising chants of, “Messi! Messi!” were met in vocal battle by, “NYC! NYC!”
There clearly was a real fandom here. Every stadium announcement was bilingual in a nod to the nature of the NYCFC supporter base, and the stadium camera — transmitted to possibly the largest screen I’ve ever seen out in the center-field stands — seemed at pains to avoid showing the man himself, as if to declare this was about more than just him. But the proof is in the numbers: 21,764 was the average NYCFC attendance in 2024, per Hudson River Blue. 40,845 were in the building for this one.
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There were the masses in Messi Miami shirts, of course, but others committed the cardinal sin of American soccer fandom: the random kit. Thomas Müller may be in MLS these days, but his Bayern Munich jersey was hardly appropriate for this occasion. I love Martin Ødegaard as much as the next guy, ma’am, but come on now. As cringe as those vestments might have been, though, they were testaments to the sports-historical character of the event: It was a night for football fans. It was a night for anybody who wants to bear witness to something, to say they were there.
In his golden years, Lionel Messi mostly has a languid stroll around the center circle when his team are forced to defend their own box. When an opponent ventures near him with the ball, he manages to put in just enough effort in his challenges that he’s not mailing it in — but not enough to put himself in harm’s way. That’s not what he’s here for. He’s here to put on a show, and even when he’s scarcely moving, the head is on a swivel. He’s mapping and re-mapping the field, his teammates, his foes, the space, the opportunity.
On 60 minutes, it began to rain down thoroughly. Not a downpour, but certainly a drench job. It was 1-0 already, but only now was the stage truly set.
There were times when New York City just could not cope with Messi’s subtle drifts into pockets of space between the midfield and defense, or his darts in behind a defender using quickness of mind as his running power fades. They couldn’t deal with Miami’s slick passing patterns, either, and Jordi Alba kicked off a beauty with a lefty pitching wedge to Suárez as he dipped into midfield. The Uruguayan, back in business after his saliva-related suspension, clicked a leaping heel-flick over a defender to a teammate, who chested it back into his path. More combination play as two sky-blue shirts wheezed into the vicinity, struggling to apply pressure, and suddenly the ball was with Busquets.
He sliced the home team open again with a through ball that took four or five defenders out of the game, finding Messi on one of those darting runs in behind. The Atomic Flea still has enough juice to see them all off, especially with the ball at his feet — it almost seems to speed him up — and in two touches he’d got himself into the box and flicked it over the goalkeeper with that dexterous topspin trajectory on which he must have a patent by now. It bounced in even as City defenders raced back towards the goal line, spinning away from them inevitably. He wheeled away towards the corner, arms outstretched. The home of the Mets exploded.
It was an undeniably different roar than you’ll hear at a European ground when the home team scores, or even from the away end when one of their lot gets one.4 This was the shout of spectacle, of being-there-for-the-moment, and I realized then that there probably wasn’t much I could confidently say about the state of Major League Soccer based on this game. This was the Messi Vortex. There were the plainclothes neutrals like myself, just there to see it, and then there were the dozens of people in my section alone who were living and dying with every kick. They screamed at the referee on Inter Miami’s behalf, demanding throw-ins and corners for Messi’s men. Are they from Miami? I thought to myself. Doubt it. But such is the devotion to this one man, they attach themselves to the club he currently represents. It’s a vessel for his fate, an ally in his pursuit of further greatness.
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I was soaked like a rat that jumped in the Hudson by the time another World Cup winner, Rodrigo De Paul, won a penalty that Suárez converted on 81 minutes. Four minutes later, Miami won the ball where the halfway line met the touchline and it fell to Messi in a Central Park of space. He let Suárez run beyond him, dragging a defender just a bit so he could whizz past himself at precisely the moment when the opponent took that fatal step to the outside. Then the #10 was into the box, driving onto his right foot and sliding a strike past Freese to notch his second of the game.
Messi went wheeling by us behind the goal, disappearing from view below the stand for just a moment. Then he popped out onto the field again and embraced with Suárez. This night in Queens, with MLS playoff placement on the line, could only rank so high in importance for this duo that won four La Liga titles and a Champions League together — and yet they were bubbling over.
Perhaps it was the stage. Broadway or Madison Square Garden this was not, but the place was still packed and thunderous. When I saw Lionel Messi at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, he played 90 minutes even with the game safely won, and he did the same here knowing that so many of us had come for one reason. He may not play every game, particularly in America’s smaller markets — a matter of considerable controversy — but when he takes the field, he seems to feel a sense of obligation. With the seconds ticking down in stoppage time here, he tried a chest-and-volley on the turn to lob the keeper from the halfway line, a final flourish.
He’s not a man who does interviews, really, but it would be fascinating to know what role he believes he has to play in the history and the future of football in America. He brought thousands of people out to Queens on that night in late September, but how many would be coming back to see their hometown squad play somebody else?
NYCFC made their pitch before kickoff, with an MC on the mic inviting folks to use this occasion as a jumping-off point to make the club a part of their lives. Every MLS team is surely doing the same when Messi comes to town, but it may be a fundamental misunderstanding of this phenomenon. The league is a way for North Americans to watch professional stuff up close, and there will always be people who show up for that, but this was a visit from another dimension.
NYCFC is building a stadium across the street from Citi Field in Flushing Meadows—Corona Park, but until it’s finished they’ll continue to play in the outfields of Major League Baseball stadiums.
There are some extra layers to that one in this day and age.
The Catalan maestro knew he’d finally done it all in football after this night in Queens and announced his intent to retire the next day.
One thing we’ve got that the European mind can’t comprehend? Vendors who come into the stands mid-game and sell you a beer for 18 bucks.