Lionel Messi Soccer Documentary Airs Pilot
Starring Lionel Messi and Lionel Messi.
While watching Lionel Messi make his Inter Miami debut in the recently concocted Leagues Cup tournament against Mexican side Cruz Azul, we didn’t learn much we didn’t already know.
A free kick won and then dispatched into the top corner to win the game in the 94th minute was momentous and magical.
A landmark moment for American soccer. Perfectly scripted.
But in truth, this kind of moment is just standard Messi. Miami and Major League Soccer is getting as much of a guaranteed storyline, guaranteed entertainment, and guaranteed quality as you can find in world soccer.
If American soccer is looking for its own documentary with the potential to have the same impact as Welcome to Wrexham, this might have, perhaps inadvertently, been its pilot episode.
Messi already has a deal with Apple TV for a separate documentary, but as he takes to the field each week for Inter Miami, and as the relationships around the club, from players and staff to media and fans, revolve around him, chapters are written, episodes are aired, and a series is produced.
Perhaps inadvertently? Perhaps perfectly planned.
American soccer is not able to create the same storylines as Wrexham in terms of progress from the ‘lower’ leagues to the top divisions as there is currently no promotion and relegation.
Instead, Messi arrives from the top of the game landing into MLS from above. A catalyst dropped into the American soccer experiment.
Fizzing around.
Changing its constitution.
Within the isolated, single-entity MLS, though, this would indeed be an example of a team going from the bottom to the top—should Messi be able to turn Inter Miami around.
On the day Messi was officially unveiled by Inter Miami, the club was at the bottom of the overall MLS standings when both conferences are combined.
They would not have won the game against Cruz Azul were it not for his wonderful free-kick in added time.
“Tonight is about the people,” co-owner David Beckham told Katie Witham on the pitch after the game.
“About this [gestures to the still bustling stadium]. This is what we always saw as our vision, me and [fellow co-owners, brothers] Jorge and Jose [Mas], and the club. This is what we saw.
“This is such a special night for us, for our families, for everyone that’s in this stadium, for you guys [media].
“It is such a moment for this country, it’s such a moment for this league and a very proud moment for us.”
The camera regularly returned to Messi throughout the first half. He probably had more screen time than some of the players on the field.
That opening 45 minutes was less about what is happening in the game and more about guessing what Messi might be thinking about it. Guessing when he will arrive in it.
Witham, the sideline reporter for Apple TV’s broadcast commented during the first half that Messi was watching every moment, immersed in the game and reacting accordingly.
Man Watches Soccer.
Greatest Player Ever Watches Inter Miami Game
then
Greatest Player Ever Plays for Inter Miami…
…and scores a free kick to win the game in the 94th minute!
Standard Messi.
If we learned anything from this game, it was perhaps mere confirmation that, after a relatively brief time away from the gaze of soccer fans around the globe, Messi has still got it.
And it is what Miami and MLS hoped for.
We also began to learn about the effect this move could have on American soccer. It has raised the mood and raised the level.
How deep it goes, and if it goes beyond Miami and MLS, might only be determined long after we’ve watched the final episode.