The Seattle Sounders walked a patient path to reach the Leagues Cup final, methodically building a deep, resilient roster with trusted mainstays, development projects from Tacoma Defiance, reliable role players and difference-makers acquired below full market value. One might even point to that process as a case study for other MLS clubs seeking consistent competitiveness.
Or, if they have way more money and much less time, they could try the Inter Miami model instead.
Some 25 months on from Lionel Messi’s epochal arrival in South Florida, the Herons are back in this title bout for the second time in three seasons, and with a drastically different roster than the one that launched their Messi era by hoisting the 2023 Leagues Cup hardware.
In stark contrast to Seattle, Miami have had something of a revolving door for most of that period, with 11 changes to their roster (six incoming, five outgoing) just since the start of the current season. Only five of the 14 players who took the pitch in that dramatic cup final win over Nashville SC two years ago are still wearing pink: Messi, his BFFs Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets, and homegrowns Benja Cremaschi and David Ruiz.
The turnover reflects the fundamental crux of the task facing the club’s sporting leadership, which itself has been in flux: providing the personalities Messi wants in his circle, while collecting complementary pieces to maximize the superstars’ strengths and cover their weaknesses – which starts with willing legs and defensive diligence.
Achieving all this within the constraints of MLS’s roster and spending regulations is no small feat, and IMCF proudly push the envelope in that regard.
“We are going to use every single roster mechanism given to us by the league to build the best roster we can to compete in 2025,” Miami’s managing owner Jorge Mas said after their MLS Cup Playoffs run ended prematurely last autumn.
“There is pressure here to win, and that pressure is going to continue. We expect it of ourselves, our coaches and players.”
Like most successful MLS sides, Miami have indeed gleaned key contributions from the junior end of the squad. Homegrowns Ian Fray and Noah Allen have been regulars along the back line, and the versatile Cremaschi, 20, has excelled enough to earn a new contract that makes him one of the top earners in his age category. SuperDraft pickup Yannick Bright is one of the league’s very best values, offering sharp ball-winning in central midfield on guaranteed annual compensation of less than $100,000.
Yet a club only six seasons into their existence hasn’t had quite the time, continuity or focus to nurture a development pipeline as comprehensive as the Sounders’, leading to something of a sink-or-swim scenario for most of the academy products to date. This remains a big-spending, superstar-driven operation.
Even the Herons’ role players have a whiff of luxury about them: Baltasar Rodríguez and Gonzalo Lujan carry Argentina Under-23 national team experience. Telasco Segovia is a Venezuelan international who was still a teenager when he arrived at then-Serie A club Sampdoria. Tadeo Allende, perhaps the Herons’ paciest, most vertical attacker, is a seven-figure earner on loan from Spanish club Celta Vigo.
MLS Players Association documents released in June show Miami as the league’s biggest salary spenders, by far, at $46,836,635 in total guaranteed annual compensation, the lion’s share of it splashed on Messi, Busquets and Alba. It’s more than $12 million beyond second-place Toronto FC, who in the months since have jettisoned Lorenzo Insigne and Federico Bernardeschi, the disappointing Italian duo whose wages comprised about 64% of the Reds’ total.
Led by the outspoken Mas, Miami are among the vanguard of forward-leaning MLS ownership groups eager to aim higher and spend more, fueled in no small part by a persistent sense of urgency from the setting sun of Messi’s career. They’ve splashed out many millions, but also raked in plenty, too, most notably via the lucrative departures of Diego Gomez and Leo Campana. Those who haven’t met expectations, like Federico Redondo and Emerson Rodríguez, or don't make head coach Javier Mascherano's grade, have generally been moved along quickly, even if at a financial loss.
Much like the revenue opportunities from selling Messi merchandise, the chance to play alongside the GOAT is a recruiting hack no other team on earth can match. If you can set aside the natural envy for a moment, there’s at least something to admire about the ambition that’s prompted Miami’s steady roster churn, a good chunk of which was adeptly overseen by former Sounders executive Chris Henderson before his departure for Atlanta United earlier this year.
IMCF managed to win the 2024 Supporters’ Shield and set a new single-season points record with a consistently rickety defense, and are actually conceding goals at a higher rate this year despite importing a new first-choice centerback pairing of Maxi Falcon and Gonzalo Lujan. The South American duo are competent, yet may be susceptible to Osaze De Rosario’s athleticism.
Still, the Herons have gotten harder to play against, for one unmistakable reason. As renowned as Alba, Busquets and Luis Suarez are – and their intuitive collective understanding of space and movement remains elite, a huge concern for Seattle’s back line – it’s Rodrigo De Paul, a head-turning summer arrival from Atletico Madrid, who could be the biggest non-Messi danger for the Rave Green.
A reigning world champion and elite midfield terrier, Messi’s friend and so-called "bodyguard" has been a hand-in-glove reinforcement for the Herons’ weaknesses, a timely injection of steel and stamina in the heart of midfield with the bonus of high game IQ and passing range. He’ll be the primary threat to the engine-room control Cristian Roldan and Obed Vargas so often impose for the Sounders.
As Golden Boot winner turned MLS Season Pass analyst Bradley Wright-Phillips wrote in a recent column, “(Miami needed) somebody with a willing mentality, some defensive nous and players that will run off the ball. De Paul is a perfect mix of all that.”
How did IMCF bring in a La Liga standout at the peak of his powers with all three Designated Player slots already occupied by Messi, Alba and Busquets? Tempting as it is to assume Mas & Co. fudged the rules, as many fans of opposing clubs have done, on paper it seems Miami pulled off some expert salary-budget gymnastics to get this done, initially bringing in De Paul on loan at a Targeted Allocation Money-level outlay.
The loan structure is only kicking the can down the road a few months, though. Should the Herons exercise the option to make a permanent transfer in the winter, it will cost them a fee in the $15-20 million range, according to ESPN, and eye-watering annual wages of $12 million, which would rank second only to Messi in MLS (with the caveat that Son Heung-min’s salary details have not yet been revealed by MLSPA).
All of which is to say that Busquets would have to take a large pay cut, if he sticks around, to open up a 2026 DP slot for De Paul. For what it’s worth, The Worldwide Leader also reports it was De Paul who approached Miami, not the other way around, when he and Atleti reached an impasse in talks about his next contract.
Is it really so different from how the LA Galaxy spun enough plates to bring Zlatan Ibrahimovic to California on a TAM contract in 2018 before upgrading to a record-breakingly lucrative DP deal the following season? Or when the Sounders, reportedly with a helping hand from the league, moved mountains and shifted paradigms to sign Clint Dempsey back in 2013? Then as now, fortune tends to favor the bold when it comes to testing the league’s self-imposed spending restrictions.
We can leave that devilish advocacy for another day. What’s clear is that Miami’s supporting cast more often than not ties things together enough for the stars to make the difference in high-leverage moments. Many opponents have enjoyed periods of superiority in their matches; relatively few have converted them into the multiple-goal leads required to stay out of Messi’s striking distance. It’s notable that they’ve lost 1-0 just once all year, a setback at LAFC in April that came in Concacaf Champions Cup play. In their seven other losses to MLS teams in various competitions, they’ve allowed at least three goals in six of them and the two teams have averaged more than four goals between them.
To that end, the Sounders have also excelled in more open contests in recent months. The Sounders have scored at least two goals in all but three of their 13 post-Club World Cup matches, a stretch in which they've gone 8-1-4.
Top-heavy and heliocentric as it is, it’s mostly working for the Herons. IMCF have climbed to third in the Eastern Conference standings and fourth in the Supporters’ Shield race on a points-per-game basis as they work through their games in hand from the Club World Cup. They’re Seattle’s inverse in many ways, and these contrasting styles should make for a fascinating fight.
“We have a diverse roster of players with a lot of experience, some at the end of their careers, young players from other countries highly motivated to develop, and young players from our academy who are starting to prove themselves,” Mascherano told the Miami Herald on Friday.
“I cannot come to Inter Miami and say that all the players are equal, because they’re not. I must be very clear to each player what his role and responsibility is within the group.”
