Lionel Messi raises “expectations”: Inter Miami now Leagues Cup favorite?

There’s a different sort of gravity around so-called ‘big clubs,’ where every moment, every move, every word is amplified and scrutinized intensely. Gerardo “Tata” Martino knows plenty about such environments, having worked in several of them over his distinguished career, and now finds himself in another at Inter Miami CF.

All the signs were present on Friday night as the Herons cruised to a dominant 4-0 Leagues Cup quarterfinal win over Charlotte FC at DRV PNK Stadium, with Lionel Messi scoring again, as he has in every game since his arrival in South Florida, for a total of eight goals and three assists in five matches to date.

Speaking to a packed room of reporters in the postgame press conference, Martino was grilled about a surreal range of topics, from Miami’s order of penalty-kick takers (to the surprise of many, Josef Martínez, not Messi, took, and converted, IMCF’s first-half spot-kick) to the ongoing wildfires in Hawai’i to his team’s drastic glow-up from MLS bottom dwellers to Leagues Cup favorites.

Isn’t it true, Martino was asked by one cheeky journalist in Spanish, that if you don’t finish the tournament in first place, the fault will be yours, that it will be seen as a failure?

“It’s a question that you love to use a lot; it generates some drama,” responded Tata with a knowing smile. “We will take responsibility for what we take responsibility for. There are no coaches in any team that don’t have to assume that risk.

“You can ask, you can question, you can debate,” he added, “but at the start of this tournament, there were 47 teams, and Miami, which is in the last place in [MLS], is in the semifinals. I think that speaks to a moment that, as a minimum, we have to have some expectations of being able to do something important.”

47 clubs entered. Only 4 remain. #LeaguesCup2023 pic.twitter.com/NxQWCU9ANn

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) August 12, 2023