Miami balancing business, soccer on ‘Messi tour’

MIAMI — As Inter Miami and Lionel Messi prepare for a world tour ahead of the grueling Major League Soccer season, coach Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino and midfielder Sergio Busquets stressed the need to balance the club’s business and sporting interests at MLS media day Thursday.

Next week, the club will travel to Central America to play the El Salvador national team (Jan. 19), kicking off its seven-game preseason schedule that includes games in five countries.

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The tour — which includes a match against Cristiano Ronaldo‘s Al Nassr (Feb. 1) — will feature four games in Asia (two in Saudia Arabia and one each in Hong Kong and Japan) over a 10-day stretch and conclude against Messi’s boyhood club, Newell’s Old Boys, on Feb. 15.

In between, Miami will also face MLS rivals FC Dallas at the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 22.

“For us, it’s looking at the balance of the sporting side and also the growth of this club and the revenues and benefiting on the business side,” said Busquets, through a translator. “So we understand that very well. But also we’ll compete against great teams that will prepare us to be in a very high level ahead of the season.

“And when it comes time changes and long trips, we have to prepare well for that. The most important thing is being prepared physically for the season.”

Inter Miami will host Real Salt Lake in the league’s first game of the season Feb. 21, the earliest start in league history. Based in one of the league’s geographic outliers, Miami will have a taxing travel schedule that includes a cross-country trip to Los Angeles in the first weekend (Feb. 25).

“We understand the business and sporting sides and the good thing is that we try for both sides to occur and happen without exceeding on one end or the other,” said Martino, through a translator. “If we do have more games, then what we have to do is balance how much each player participates in each one of them.

“When it comes to the trips to Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Japan, those have been well organized because it’s been worked on since the end of last year. We’re not concerned about the number of games.”

Without providing any specifics, Martino said “some of [Miami’s] best players” are contractually required to participate in some of the preseason games. It’s unclear how much revenue Miami is expected to generate as part of its ambitious preseason, which is very unusual by MLS standards.

The preseason will also feature the debut of new striker Luis Suárez, who will reunite with his former Barcelona teammates Jordi Alba, Messi and Busquets in MLS.

“We’re very excited. He’s very excited,” Busquest said. “We know what to expect from him. He has scored goals his entire career.

“He just won the best player of the Brazilian League, which is very challenging and tough league. He scored many goals, many assists and hopefully he’s coming here to continue with that streak.”

Suárez, 36, scored 17 goals in 33 Brazilian Serie A matches for Gremio last season. He will be introduced as an Inter Miami player on Saturday.

After arriving in the middle of the season last year, Busquets said the team will benefit from having a preseason to establish a clear style of play. He was complimentary of the level in MLS, noting, “It’s much better than what people may think.”

“We want to be a team that controls the game and is very tactically prepared that pressures up top and plays on the opponents half, but generally in the league maybe there’s a lot of back and forth, especially toward the end of the match,” he said.

“So that’s my analysis in comparison. Maybe in Spain there’s a little bit more tactical control, but I think the level is similar. I’m not going to say it’s the same, but I think it’s similar.”

In the wake of Messi’s arrival and in anticipation of a global spotlight, the league announced Thursday it would be the subject of a new documentary series on Apple TV+, produced by the same filmmaker behind the Netflix hit “Formula 1: Drive to Survive,” that will chronicle the 2024 season.