How Lionel Messi and Inter Miami will be impacted by Tata Martino’s exit

As Inter Miami closed in on a record-setting 74-point season and a Supporters’ Shield trophy, much of the credit was given to Lionel Messi. When healthy, the 37-year-old Argentina national team captain was dominant. 

Messi played in just 19 of Miami’s 36 league matches but was still performing at MVP level, even if this was perhaps unsurprising for an eight-time Ballon d’Or winner. Messi, though, has attributed Miami’s rise from a last-place club to the league’s standard to head coach Tata Martino. 

“The team has grown so much with Martino’s arrival,” Messi told reporters on the eve of the Leagues Cup final in August 2023. He repeated that on October 2 this year in a post-match interview with Apple TV after scoring two goals against the Columbus Crew to secure the Supporters’ Shield.

On Tuesday, The Athletic reported Martino had resigned as Miami’s head coach due to personal reasons.

The club announced that Martino, club co-owner Jorge Mas and president of football operations Raul Sanllehi will address the media on Friday. The reasons for Martino’s abrupt departure from Miami, who were eliminated from the MLS playoffs on November 9, will become more clear. But it may not answer every pending question regarding the future of the club and how this change will affect Messi. The World Cup winner has a contract through the 2025 season and a reported option for 2026.

Messi is much more than a star player at the club. His contract includes a purchase option that would make him a partial owner in the future. He’s an influential figure.

In June 2023, cameras in Argentina captured Martino leaving Messi’s gated community in Rosario. The unconfirmed meeting took place two weeks after Messi told the world that he would end his European career and head to the United States. It preempted the third iteration of a Messi-Martino partnership. Martino coached Messi for one season at Barcelona in 2014 then again in 2015-2016 with the Argentina national team. 

Former Barcelona director of football Andoni Zubizarreta claimed in 2020 that Martino had voiced concerns about Messi’s authority at the Catalan club during a Barcelona training session a decade ago. According to Zubizarreta, Martino told Messi, “I know you can call the president and he’ll fire me, but damn, you don’t have to demonstrate that every day. I already know.” 

“Those words never came out of my mouth,” Martino said shortly after.

Their relationship has been overanalyzed. The fact that Martino could not win a major trophy alongside Messi fueled the hypothesis that a lack of success had created fissures between the two. The evidence at hand, though, doesn’t add up. 

Messi and Martino shared an embrace during last summer’s hype-filled Leagues Cup run which seemingly put an end to that theory. Messi’s public support of Martino this season carries weight as well.

A stinging loss can change everything in professional sport. But Martino’s resignation coincides with a shift in dynamics inside the walls of Miami’s facility in Fort Lauderdale. To begin with, there is no shortage of decision makers at the club. 

There’s Mas, the outspoken billionaire executive who personally recruited Luis Suarez. His brother Jose Mas is also a club adjudicator. Co-owner David Beckham has a say across multiple departments, too. Martino himself had significant authority on player signings early in his short tenure.

Things get complicated when it comes to the club’s sporting department. It was originally led by chief soccer officer Chris Henderson until Mas hired Sanllehi to oversee that division. It will be Sanllehi, not Henderson, who will flank Martino and Jorge Mas during Friday’s press conference. Sanllehi has twice held the position of director of football, first at Barcelona and then at Arsenal. He and Martino crossed paths during the Argentine’s lone year in La Liga.

Before joining Miami, Sanllehi was the director general of Real Zaragoza in Spain — where Mas is part of the ownership group. Shortly after Sanllehi arrived in Zaragoza, the club’s owners replaced head coach Juan Ignacio Martinez with Juan Carlos Carcedo, a former assistant of Unai Emery at Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain and Sevilla, among other clubs. Sanllehi described Carcedo, the current head coach of Cypriot team Pafos FC, as “hard-working, knowledgeable and modern” in an interview with The Athletic in 2022.

By hiring Sanllehi, Mas sent a clear message. He has experience in key administrative positions in Europe and will help shape Miami’s sporting strategy. But there are major differences between managing a top-tier European side and maneuvering the convoluted squad and financial restrictions of an MLS club. 

Sanllehi was instrumental in the highly-publicized deal that saw Neymar move from Santos to Barcelona in 2013. Neymar has been the latest superstar to be linked to a move to Miami.

But Messi also has allies within the club in important roles. One is Guillermo Hoyos, Miami’s director of player development and methodology. Hoyos, an Argentine, was a youth coach of Messi’s at Barcelona. In 2010, Messi referred to Hoyos as “my footballing godfather.”

Henderson is one of just a few professionals within the organization who has vast experience as an MLS executive. The club’s director of player personnel and compliance, Meghan Cameron, is a former MLS league office employee who was hired in 2021 after Miami were sanctioned for the MLS salary budget and roster guidelines. Henderson has thus far survived the ongoing shakeup. Miami’s vice president of soccer operations Niki Budalic, who works closely with Henderson, remains at the club. Others do not.

Former first team director of scouting and recruitment Mark Prizant, a former Manchester United scout, left the club over the summer for new MLS expansion side San Diego FC. He was named assistant sporting director.

After Miami’s 2-1 win over Atlanta United on October 25, Martino credited Henderson, Budalic and others for identifying midfielder Yannick Bright in the 2023 college draft. Bright, 23, was a revelation in 2024. Martino clearly respected their opinions.

With so many important voices in some of Miami’s most prominent positions, Martino had limited sway. In the end, Martino, who took Miami from the bottom of the Eastern Conference to the league’s best-ever point total, is just a coach. Never mind that his eye for talent identification has resulted in two of MLS’ most prolific teams. Atlanta United in 2018 and the 2024 version of Inter Miami have Martino’s fingerprints throughout both teams. 

But as Martino told reporters two weeks ago, Miami fell well short of their objectives this season. The bar was high when he was hired shortly after Messi announced his decision to join. The standard, now, is even higher. Martino’s successor will have to manage up and appease the club’s most powerful voices. Miami’s next head coach must find common ground with Messi immediately, and outperform the team’s 2024 exploits.

Carcedo could be a dark horse candidate based on his previous history with Mas and Sanllehi. Former Barcelona midfielder and manager Xavi, currently unemployed, checks the most boxes. Together with Messi and Sergio Busquets, Xavi was an integral part of Barcelona’s glorious run from the mid 2000s. Mas admires the Barcelona DNA. His successful courtship of Messi, Suarez, Busquets and Jordi Alba have been a boon for the club and for MLS.

Then there’s Javier Mascherano, another former Barcelona midfielder and a legend with the Argentina national team. Mascherano and Messi have a long history together. Mascherano, 40, is the head coach of Argentina’s U-20 and U-23 teams. He talks openly about his friendship with Messi. He also tried to include Messi in his squad for the Paris Olympics as an overage player.

The Miami job is a desirable one from the outside. Thanks to Messi, the club’s brand is well known around the world. But whoever is hired as Miami’s next manager will have the unenviable task of coaching an aging Miami team with limited depth at next summer’s Club World Cup. 

Martino’s exit has been put down to personal reasons — but what Martino says on Friday, in what will be a highly visible news conference, could be telling.

(Top photo: AFP via Getty Images)