Sports Editor. Covering the Spanish women’s national team and Real Madrid’s women since 2017.
Inter Miami will not be crowned MLS champions; however, they will represent the United States in the Club World Cup as the host nation. The ad hoc invitation from Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, for the upcoming summer tournament was highly controversial at the time, seen as an attempt to ensure that Lionel Messi would be part of it. Now, football has validated the critics of this decision, as the Florida team has suffered an early exit in the playoffs, falling in the Round of 16.
Infantino previously employed a shaky argument to justify including Inter Miami in the tournament. The FIFA president claimed that the club, owned by David Beckham, had been the best team in the regular season of the MLS. This rationale may be applicable to any league worldwide where the champion is the top-ranked team, but not in the MLS, which follows an NBA-style format with two conferences and playoffs to determine the title winner.
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In previous editions of the Club World Cup, under the old format where only the champions from each continent participated and were held annually (now replaced by the new Intercontinental Cup format), the league champion of the host nation was always present. This will not be the case for the upcoming tournament set to take place in the United States in the summer of 2025. Inter Miami will be present, but not the MLS champion.
The decision by FIFA to argue that Inter Miami’s claim as the best regular-season team justified their invitation aimed to ensure Messi’s presence at the World Cup in case something went wrong, which has indeed unfolded. The logical announcement would have been that the American league champion would represent the nation at the upcoming summer event; however, this would risk leaving out the marquee team of the United States.
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Messi and Inter Miami Eliminated from MLS Playoffs in the United States
Under Tata Martino’s management, Inter Miami has faced its first major setback, being eliminated in the first round of the title race. Their status as the regular-season champions has proven irrelevant, as the ninth-placed team, who advanced to the playoffs via a preliminary play-in against the eighth place, knocked them out in the Round of 16. Atlanta United triumphed in the series, best of three matches akin to basketball, clinching a 2-3 victory in the final game held in Miami.
Consequently, the Herons will not contest the title among the eight best teams in the league. This outcome highlights the implications of Infantino’s invitation, as it did not adhere to the criteria typically employed in similar instances, inviting the host league champion. In the case of Inter Miami, there was no need to wait for the champion to be determined. The executive once again extended a favor to Messi, leveraging it as a draw to make his new competition more enticing and potentially more lucrative than anticipated.
