Xavier Guerrero

Posting this has me teary-eyed 🥹 but with immense gratitude over these beautiful experiences & lifelong memories soccer has given me. 🙏 Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this journey! @oskfotboll @RangersFC @HelsingborgsIF @FCNantes @PhilaUnion @USMNT @ussoccer @MLS

Sometimes, I sit down and genuinely wonder what kind of footballer Lionel Messi is. Someone once described him as a spiritual leader of football. Honestly, even that sounds like an understatement. Do you understand what it means to be so good at a sport that opponents have to rethink how they play it simply because you exist? Messi wasn't just another player coaches prepared their teams to face. Sometimes, he was the problem around which the entire tactical plan was built. Look at José Mourinho's Inter in 2010. Mourinho explained how his defensive structure was organised around preventing Messi from receiving the ball comfortably. Zanetti, Cambiasso and Motta had specific responsibilities depending on where Messi moved. They called it a Gabbia (a cage). Think about that for a moment. It wasn't simply eleven players defending against Barcelona. It was an entire defensive structure designed to deny one man the freedom to play his football. And that wasn't an isolated incident. Coaches had to account for his movements, anticipate his decisions, adjust their marking assignments and find ways to close spaces before he could exploit them. Messi became a tactical problem that required tactical solutions. And when you couldn't always explain what he was doing with ordinary football language, people started looking for other explanations. FIFA this. Referees that. Favourite of the system. Protected player. Everything except acknowledging that sometimes, the simplest explanation is that you're watching an extraordinary footballer. Did FIFA invent his left foot? Did FIFA teach him to see passes other players couldn't imagine? Did FIFA score those free kicks, produce those assists, dribble past those defenders or create those chances? Football has always had controversial decisions. Messi has benefited from some, suffered from others, just like other great players. But you cannot use individual controversies to erase two decades of footballing excellence. And perhaps the most fascinating thing about Messi is that he has managed to evolve without losing the essence of what makes him special. At 19, he was a different kind of nightmare. The acceleration, the explosive dribbling, the ability to leave defenders behind as though they were standing still. At 39, the acceleration isn't what it used to be. But watch him play. The intelligence, the disguise in his passing, the little one-twos, the awareness of space, the ability to manipulate an opponent's movement before releasing the ball. He has lost some speed, but he hasn't lost the ability to make football move at his pace. He went from outrunning defenders to outthinking entire defensive structures. And this is where Greek mythology almost becomes necessary to describe him. In Greek mythology, Athena represented wisdom and strategic intelligence, while Hermes represented speed and agility. Messi's career almost feels like a story of both. The young Messi carried the qualities of Hermes. The older Messi increasingly resembles Athena: seeing the game several moves ahead, understanding spaces, manipulating situations and finding solutions before opponents realise there is a problem. He is a footballing paradox: a player who once conquered defenders with his legs and now continues to conquer them with his mind. At the 2026 World Cup, at 39, he reached another final with Argentina. And in the 2026 Ballon d'Or rankings, he finished fifth, surrounded by players representing the next generation of football. Let that sink in. A man who has already given football almost everything is still competing among the names expected to define its future. I don't think we appreciate the magnitude of that enough. And that's why I sometimes wish people would stop turning every Messi discussion into an argument about who is better, who has more goals, who has more trophies or who received what award. There is a bigger conversation here.👇

Decision Day is less than a week away! Here is how things are shaping up ahead of MLS' most riveting regular season matchday. 👀 MLS Cup Playoffs pres. by @Audi

🚨 German Berterame on playing alongside Lionel Messi after Inter Miami’s comeback against New England Revolution: “I’m going to tell you something about Leo that people watching on television probably won’t understand. Sometimes you make a run because you know he’s going to find you. Other times, you make a run because you have absolutely no idea what he’s planning, but you don’t want to be the person who wasn’t ready. Today was one of those days. We’re losing 1-0, and obviously everybody is trying to find a way back into the game. Leo gets involved in the build-up. We’re moving the ball around, trying to create an opening, and suddenly I see him making a run into the penalty area. I look at him. Then I look at the defenders. There are two of them following him. And these are big guys. Much taller than Leo. Now, normally, when you see a player of Leo’s height between two defenders like that, you’re not expecting him to be the one winning a ball in the air. But the ball comes in. And I’m thinking, ‘Okay, let’s see what happens here.’ Next thing, Leo gets his head on it, and the ball is coming towards me. I’m not even going to pretend I understood how he managed it. All I know is that I suddenly had a chance to score. So I finished it. And when we were celebrating, I said to him, ‘Leo, you know those two defenders were much taller than you, right?’ He looked at me as if I was asking him something completely unnecessary. I said, ‘I’m serious. What made you think you were going to win that header?’ And he just said, ‘I knew where the ball was going.’ That’s it. No long explanation. I think that’s the problem with asking Leo questions about football. You want him to explain something incredible, and he answers as if you’ve asked him why he put his boots on before the match. But then he scored the winner. And that one was even worse. Because I was watching the defender. He was close enough to challenge Leo. He hadn’t completely lost his position. Then Leo started moving his feet. You know when you’re watching somebody and you think, ‘Okay, he’s going to go this way’? And before you’ve even finished that thought, he’s already gone somewhere else? That’s what happened. The defender was trying to react to the first movement, and Leo was already preparing the next one. And then he scored. I remember turning towards one of the guys and saying, ‘How are we supposed to explain this to people?’ Because he’s 39 years old. Thirty-nine. I’m not saying that to disrespect him. But you have to understand how strange it is when you’re on the pitch with him. You see young players working on their speed, their dribbling, their finishing. You see how hard everybody trains to improve those things. Then Leo walks onto the pitch and does something that makes you wonder whether he’s been playing a different version of football his entire life. And the funniest thing is that he doesn’t seem particularly surprised by any of it. We were losing, he helped us equalise, then he scored the winner. For us, that’s an incredible comeback. For Leo, I think he probably just wants to know what time training starts tomorrow. I told one of the boys after the match, ‘You know, when he eventually retires, we’re going to have to learn how to solve some of these problems ourselves.’ And he said, ‘Don’t remind me. I’m enjoying this while it lasts.’ I couldn’t disagree with him.”

Another young #USMNT future star, Peyton Miller makes the run that breaks down the #InterMiamiCF & leads to the New England goal 1-0..#Messi needs to lead the turnaround, if not him then who? ..#Lemoncitylive