How Lionel Messi’s arrival in Miami reflects the Beckham Experiment

Beckham had options at the end of 2006, when it was time to decide what to do with the next phase of his glittering career the following summer. He could have stayed at Real Madrid, who initially wavered over a new contract, but in the end he was keen for him to stay.

He could have chosen any elite European team, or he could have returned to his native England, where former club Manchester United were just one of the teams that would have welcomed him with open arms.

Instead, Beckham’s head was turned by the pitch made by Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Galaxy, an impassioned vision put forth by the club’s owners and then-general manager Alexi Lalas that focused on the potential to change the overall landscape of American soccer.

Don’t let the revisionist narrative take over. Beckham didn’t get over it, he was still an elite player when he arrived, having played a key role in helping Madrid win La Liga just before making the move, and he was only 32 years old.

His launch of the Galaxy was carried out on a grand scale, partly because this was Los Angeles, partly because Beckham (aided by his status as a fashion icon and his Spice Girl wife, Victoria) was the most famous soccer player on the planet, and partly because MLS knew this was a now-or-never time to make a splash.

Beckham was introduced at the Galaxy’s new stadium in Carson, California, stood for hours of interviews, greeted by Tom Cruise, sporting a shimmering silver suit and a close-cropped gold haircut. The mission was on.

Now in the owner’s suite, and with his playing career a decade in the rear-view mirror, there was no one better positioned to sell Messi a new vision, why this was the logical next step after two decades at Barcelona and two years with Paris St. Germain.

MLS is in a much different place now compared to when Beckham joined. A league of 13 teams has grown to 29. Toronto FC’s franchise fee to join the league in 2006 was $10 million. When San Diego becomes the No. 30 team in 2025, its owners will have chipped in $500 million just for the right to call themselves an MLS club.

When Beckham arrived, MLS needed a savior. The England midfielder was in a package said to be worth $250 million over five years, but his teammates earned just $12,000 a season, some eating from McDonald’s $1 menu to make ends meet.

The league is now strong in its own markets, virtually every team owns its own stadium, attendance is high, quality has improved dramatically, and competent imports continue to arrive. What is needed now is an energizer, someone to take things to the next level so that MLS matters more intensely nationally and globally.

Who better than a player who has just won the World Cup for his country, with Messi leading Argentina to their spectacular triumph in Qatar in December?

Lionel Messi: The best of the 2022 FIFA World Cup

Unsurprisingly, Beckham and his team have tried to base Messi’s introduction on similar lines to his own. There was an opening last weekend, although it was delayed due to rain. Messi is famously media shy and not comfortable conversing in English, but the thousands who gathered at Inter Miami’s DRV PNK Stadium still received a moving message.

“I am very happy to have chosen to come to play in this city with my family, to choose this project,” Messi said. “I have no doubt that we are going to enjoy it a lot, we are going to have a great time and very good things are going to happen.”

(Messi’s addition to Inter Miami is a validation for MLS and its progress)

MLS bosses have waited for Beckham’s next moment and now it’s here, they’re not going to be uptight about what it means.

“He just continues to defy everyone’s expectations,” Commissioner Don Garber told reporters. “And at some point, five years from now or 10 years from now, there will be a player who is thinking about Major League Soccer because he saw the success and experience of Lionel Messi with Inter Miami.

“This is a transformational moment for our league.”

When Beckham arrived it was a transformational moment for me. Then, living in England, the opportunity to cover Beckham’s first season soon turned into a long-term job, then a full-time move, marriage, children and a new life.

Just as golfers talk about the Tiger Woods effect and how it changed their sport forever, so too will MLS players discuss how things would surely look very different if Beckham hadn’t made the switch when he did.

Now that so much time has passed, the Beckham Experiment, as the late journalist Grant Wahl’s book called it, is being judged on the macro impacts it had on the sport. At the moment, as always happens with these things, it was judged by how things were going on the field.

Initially, at least, that side of things was not good.

(Why MLS Has Never Seen A Player Like Lionel Messi)

Beckham arrived recovering from injury and was unable to play at first, scuttling a plan for a multi-city Galaxy road trip designed to showcase the newcomer to an American audience.

The Galaxy were 11th of 13 teams in 2007, 12th of 14 in 2008, despite Beckham and Landon Donovan being on the same team. Beckham went on loan to AC Milan and suffered another injury, he trained for an extended spell with EPL side Tottenham and was generally not happy.

But the arrival of Robbie Keane provided a scoring threat and things picked up, to the point that LA won the MLS Cup in 2011 and backed it again in 2012, with Beckham signing for another year once his initial deal was done.

“Having Leo here is a dream come true,” Beckham said last week. But with Inter Miami at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, he knows the dream will turn sour unless luck on the field improves.

Highlights of the next MLS star, Lionel Messi of Inter Miami CF

Messi wants to win in Miami, he is too big a competitor for any other result to be acceptable. Lifestyle clearly played a part in his decision, as if it were just about money, he would have gone to Saudi Arabia, a nation with whom he has an ongoing endorsement deal and where he could have lined his pockets with much more than the expected $70 million package he will receive here.

You will have a challenge ahead of you, but you will also have help. Close friend and former Barca teammate Sergio Busquets has joined, another old colleague is likely to come in Jordi Alba, and former Argentina manager Tata Martino has settled on the sidelines.

If Messi shoots to the best of his ability, it’s hard to imagine MLS defenses being any better at stopping him than Spanish, French or international ones for all these years.

This may not be a truly unique moment, but it feels like a special one. Crystal balls, not footballs, can tell you what the future looks like and the full impact of Messi’s move won’t be able to be accurately assessed until long after he’s gone.

But know this. There has been a single moment in the history of American soccer that felt as significant as this, sending the sport and the league into high gear toward a historic explosion of growth and interest.

The Beckham Experiment worked. Messi’s momentum is already underway. Remember this week because, and this is not hyperbole, the future begins now.