Your 2024 Supporters' Shield Winners... Inter Miami CF
As to not many people’s surprise, Inter Miami CF are your 2024 Major League Soccer Supporters’ Shield Champions! In some mid-week action last night, Inter Miami defeated the Columbus Crew 3-2 to claim the club’s first ever Shield and second ever title. The win came behind a brace for Lionel Messi who now has 17 goals and 15 assists this MLS season (just in about 1,400 minutes played).
When you look at the big picture of this season for Miami, some make think no sh*t Miami was the best regular season team. And to be fair, they are wrong to think that way. This is a club that has; “the G.O.A.T” Lionel Messi, one of the best strikers ever in Luis Suarez, one of the best leftbacks ever in Jodi Alba, one of the best defensive midfielders ever in Sergio Busquets, two Paraguay internationals in Diego Gomez and Matias Rojas, some of the best MLS produced talents like Julian Gressel, as well as some of the best young talents from all over the Americas like Federico Redondo, Toto Aviles, David Ruiz, Benjamin Cremaschi, and others. This team is overflowing with talent and might just be the deepest team we’ve ever seen in Major League Soccer’s history.
But outside of the big names and the young talents, this club has had to truly deal with a ton this season. Early on in 2024, Miami lost a top U22 talent in forward Facundo Farias due to injury. The Argentine was looking like he was going to be a consistent starter and a focal point of this offense when rotating the big names. Then, not too long later the club lost centerback Nicholas Freire to a season ending injury. This blow felt worse to the club as they were not the deepest at central defense. Freire was not only a veteran of the game and their top performing defender, but he was a veteran of Liga MX and knew this region well. Throughout this season the club also lost out on its big name stars Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez for large chunks of the season. Messi has only played roughly 1,400 MLS minutes in 2024 while Suarez a little more with 1,800.
So how did this team that was killed by major injuries almost all season long win the Shield? Well, Lionel Messi does still help that even if he was out for a large portion of the season. Inter Miami and their front office were able to pull talents from all over the world, and do so in ways that other clubs around MLS might not have been able to. In my eyes, this was due to the opportunity to come play with Messi. Miami has Luis Suarez, Jodi Alba, Matias Rojas, and Diego Gomez all on a TAM deal and not a DP contract. I don’t think many other clubs around Major League Soccer would be able to have some of these guys take pay cuts, but the opportunity to play with Messi is maybe priceless. Outside of giving all the credit to Lionel Messi (which he deserves a large portion of the credit), I think you have to look at Tata Martino. Tata got the most out of ALL of his players on this first team roster. Out of the SuperDraft Tata and Miami got really strong minutes out of Yannick Bright and Leo Afonso. The club also received major production from their HomeGrown talents such as Benjamin Cremaschi, Noah Allen, David Ruiz, and Ian Fray. The club got roughly 3,500 MLS minutes played from those four with a total of 9 goal contributions from the group as well.
Ultimately, yes… this team has Messi. But the story of the 2024 Inter Miami squad should not be Messi alone. This is a team that the front office created to be one of the most talented and deepest we’ve seen. A Manager in Tata Martino who worked wonders to create line-ups through injuries and get the most out of almost every single player on this roster. A group of hard working HomeGrowns and young talents that stepped up to support global stars. And finally, yes, some of the greatest players to ever grace a soccer field. Congratulations Miami… now go get the MLS single season points record.
