Two hours before the 8 p.m. kickoff of Saturday’s Leagues Cup final at Geodis Park, the lots were full.
A cynic might make a joke about the parking in general at Nashville SC games — with merit — but spend 10 seconds in the buzz of fans around The Fairgrounds Nashville on Saturday and it was clear that this was different: Messi was here, silverware was on the line, and the club had a chance to make some history.
Fans lined the high gates on the south side of the stadium hoping to get a glimpse of the world’s best player as the Inter Miami bus pulled in. It’s been like this since Messi arrived in America a month ago from Paris. His signing was a coup for Major League Soccer, which not only opened up its checkbook but also its partners’ checkbooks — including Apple and Adidas — to compete with the Saudis for the most recognizable face in world soccer. Imagine if Michael Jordan had decided to play in Paris or London instead of for the Washington Wizards at the end of his career and you begin to see the impact.
The concourses at Geodis were full of Messi jerseys. The majority of the shirts were the No. 10 Argentina version that he wore when he lifted the World Cup in December. Many were recently minted pink or black Miami editions, while a few represented his Barcelona days — when he scored 672 goals in 778 games.
Paul Nguyen of Bowling Green wore a Paris Saint-Germain shirt, Messi’s most recent club, as he and his son walked around Geodis before kickoff. They paid almost $1,000 between them to grab spots in the Supporters Section. When asked by a reporter if he’s really going to cheer for Miami in the middle of a bunch of hardcore Nashville fans, he laughed.
“I cheer for Messi to do well,” Nguyen said. “Whoever wins is OK, I came to enjoy the game.”
By the time kickoff came, Geodis was on a full boil. The teams spent 20 minutes warily feeling each other out, with Nashville content to absorb pressure while Miami slowly pushed the game into Nashville’s end.
Every time Messi picked up the ball, he drew attention, with players in gold yelling and pointing. You could see pockets of space just open as the gold shirts contracted around him. Some clubs have opted to mark Messi all over the field, but that does weird things to the shape of your team. Instead, Nashville kept its organized 4-4-2, but there was an awareness of where the great one was at all times.
Which is funny, because a lot of what Messi does is just jog around. He floats into space, a line of defenders sinks deeper, and he slows slightly and suddenly he’s open. He no longer possesses the blinding speed he did as a teen, but he doesn’t need it.
In the 23rd minute, Miami attacked down the left through Robert Taylor, a Finnish journeyman who bounced around Scandinavian leagues for a decade before landing in Miami last year. His two goals in 19 league games are unimpressive, but playing with Messi has brought him new life. In the Leagues Cup alone, Taylor has four goals and three assists. Taylor tried to slip a pass through to Benjamin Cremaschi, but Nashville’s Lukas MacNaughton blocked it only for the ball to deflect to, you guessed it, Messi, drifting into a pocket of space.
Messi cut left across the top of the box, narrowly avoiding an outstretched Walker Zimmerman, and sent the ball through a two-foot window between Dax McCarty and Shaq Moore, rocketing a shot into the top right corner of the goal. Goalkeeper Elliot Panicco, who was screened by defenders, picked it up too late and missed the save by inches.
In short, Messi had the ball for less than three seconds, beat three defenders and scored from 20 yards out — an amazing goal.
“What I would take away from it is that there are moments in the game that he’s just unplayable,” said Nashville SC manager Gary Smith after the game. It was the first time Smith had seen Messi play live. “It's not over a prolonged period. It's not for 90 minutes. There are windows where he just comes to life. And it's almost impossible to deal with what he is wanting to do.”
The goal took the crowd out of the game for a minute, but Nashville began to press forward. While Messi had proven to be lethal, there was little else about Miami that threatened them. Taylor was effectively shut down for most of the game. Josef Martinez, who terrorized the league for several years in Atlanta, is a shell of himself. In the end, Nashville was threatened only twice the rest of the game — once on a Messi shot from distance and once by Leonardo Campana’s near miss at full time.
In the second half, Nashville threatened more, piling up crosses and corners until the 57th minute, when Fafa Piccault headed in a ball nodded on by new signing Sam Surridge, who started his first game. It had none of the sexiness of the Messi strike, but the roar that it provoked was real. Within a minute, the Supporters Section was bellowing the South American chant adapted by so many MLS sides:
Vamos, vamos Nashville esta noche
tenemos que ganar
Vamos, vamos Nashville esta noche
tenemos que ganar
“Let’s go, let’s go Nashville, tonight we have to win.”
By the time the final whistle blew at 1-1, Nashville led in most meaningful categories except the scoreboard. Miami had more possession, but for long stretches, the ball was never in a threatening position on the field. Smith is defensive about his team’s considerable defensive qualities, telling reporters after the semifinal that he prefers the term “well-organized.” And on this night they had more attacking intent, putting six shots on goal to Miami’s two and earning six corners, one of which was converted by Piccault. But for one bit of Messi magic, this game might have ended differently.
Instead, it went to penalties. Coaches use words like “cruel” to describe games that are decided by kicks when trophies are on the line, and so did Smith. In the end, it came down to the two goalkeepers, the 11th penalty-takers of the night. Miami’s Drake Callendar made his and then turned around and saved Panicco’s. It was a cruel twist for the Nashville keeper, who has been excellent throughout the tournament.
After the game, McCarty waited for a half-hour to trade jerseys with Messi. His teammates had all long showered and gone, but the midfielder stayed behind. He’s just two months older than Messi, and at 36, he knows his days of playing every minute of every game are long past. After beating Monterrey, he talked about how things are different for him: He’s on a one-year contract; he handed the captain’s armband over to Zimmerman earlier this year; he hears the clock ticking.
McCarty has the sound of a player savoring these experiences because he doesn’t know how many are left.
“I mean, that's the best atmosphere I've ever played,” McCarty said. “And I can't say enough about our supporters, that people have been with us since day one. I mean, these fans, they were just waiting to explode. And when we scored, that was probably the loudest I've ever heard a stadium in Nashville. It was just an unbelievable feeling to be in a game of that magnitude in front of our fans. It's just a shame that we couldn't get over that final hurdle and bring a trophy home to them.”
A trophy would have been a fitting capstone to McCarty’s career. Instead, he’ll have to settle for a run in the playoffs and hope for a home game at Geodis. If Saturday night is any indication, it will be electric.
