6-0 losses and government complaints: What's going on at Inter Miami?

Miami lost twice in Saudi Arabia, earning snickers from Cristiano Ronaldo, the Saudi Pro League's most famous player. It was formally condemned by the Hong Kong government when it failed to play Lionel Messi there after advertising him heavily to increase ticket sales. And to make matters worse, Miami's upcoming match against Vissel Kobe has been dropped from AppleTV's MLS Season Pass schedule altogether. While Apple stated that a lack of suitable local feeds was the cause, many fans familiar with Japan's excellent sports coverage believe the company simply doesn't want to air another embarrassing Miami loss.

"As us coaches always say, you need your team to win, even if it's preseason," Miami manager Tata Martino said after his team lost 6-0 to Al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia. "We have to break out of this losing dynamic."

Casual fans know Miami as the home of Lionel Messi, the world's greatest soccer player, but the only game Miami has won in 2024 is the game Messi didn't feature in at all. What's the story here? What's causing Miami's poor run of form?

Poor fitness (and a decent dose of bad luck.) Soccer experts always preach caution when evaluating preseason results, and the reason is simple: players aren't up to full match fitness, so their performances aren't always representative of their true abilities. We've seen this play out with new Miami signing Luis Suarez, who hasn't looked quite ready to run at pace during his preseason matches. But we've also seen it with a few of Miami's young players like Benjamin Cremaschi and Facundo Farias. Cremaschi succumbed to a sports hernia in the preseason and will be out for three months, while Farias suffered a nasty ACL injury in the first game against El Salvador. He's likely to miss the entirety of the regular season as he recovers.

Misaligned expectations. The lack of match fitness means teams are far from their best in preseason, even when they're perfectly healthy. That means MLS put Inter Miami in a terrible position when it packaged its preseason as a Messi and Suarez world tour. Neither is ready to play a full 90 minutes, let alone five perfect 90-minute games in a row. 

The preseason is the worst time for MLS to be showcasing its teams to the rest of the world. 

Preseason versus mid-season. Miami's preseason schedule is especially difficult because of its makeup: instead of playing other MLS teams, all of whom would be just as shaky as Miami is, it's facing fully fit squads in the middle of their competitive seasons. Asking Miami to play competitively against trained, synced teams like Al-Nassr is simply asking too much. (It's why teams like Manchester United and Arsenal tend to play against a hastily-assembled 'MLS All-Star Team' instead of, say, the Columbus Crew when they tour the States for their own preseasons. They'd likely get hammered by a fully fit Crew.)

While these three truths have kept Miami down during its preseason run, they're far from the full story. Fans must remember that Miami was the second-worst team in MLS last season, even with Messi's assistance; while its star power is undeniable, it's far from the strongest team MLS offers the world stage. 

Miami has a long way to go before it's ready for primetime. But the team has had the deck stacked against it with this poorly communicated world tour.