Mauricio Catach co-authored this article. Thank you for your tremendous know-how and feedback. A big thank you also to our Editor Jean Alper Heidemann (@filmnobelpreis)
In the past, the MLS was ridiculed. Soccer was regarded as insignificant compared to football, basketball, or baseball, and the league’s only function was providing a team for aged soccer icons to play at a lower level for a couple of years before retirement. However, the league's quality is improving and is beginning to close the gap to the European Levels. Soccer is becoming a real thing in the US, culminating in the World Cup 2026.
The popularity of the MLS can also be observed in the current transfer market. After icons like Beckham, Ibrahimovic, Chiellini, and Andrea Pirlo moved to the MLS, it is time now for one of the all-time best to play in the States. Lionel Messi signed a contract with Inter Miami for the upcoming season. In addition, he brings two other world-class players and former Barca team colleagues with him: Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba. The trio has dominated European Football in the last 15 years, winning every possible title. But with their age slowly impacting their level, a few questions arise:
How good are they, especially compared to the current level of the MLS?
Will they be able to dominate the league alone?
Is Inter Miami now in the pole position for winning the title?
This article will answer these questions from Goalimpact’s perspective.
More about Goalimpact.
Comparing Messi and Busquets to the MLS Level
The average Goalimpact of all MLS players is currently around 115. Compared to the Premier League, this is around 25 points lower and on a level with the third European divisions. Only 10% of MLS players have a Goalimpact higher than 140, around the average level for 1. Bundesliga (138) and Premier League (143) players. So, roughly 90 MLS players could compete on the European top level. The top 10 MLS players (1%) have a Goalimpact of above 160. These players could even play for the top European clubs. This is exciting news to the MLS because the league also defines itself by developing players for the big European Leagues.
Messi's current Goalimpact is around 170. He is, no surprise, one of the Top 3 players in the MLS, despite his age. His peak Goalimpact (highest performance level in his career) was 197, which makes him one of the best players of all time. Only MLS colleague Giorgio Chiellini (171) has a higher Goalimpact Peak. However his current level is the same as Messi.
Sergio Busquets is on a similar level as Messi and has just a slightly lower Goalimpact. His recent Goalimpact is 166 after a career Peak of 190. This makes him currently the 7th-best player in the MLS.
This means: Both Messi and Busquets add tremendous value to the MLS and Inter Miami. The MLS will have a lot of fun with them. No real surprise.
More interesting questions are:Â
How much will Inter Miami now improve?
Will these two players alone turn Inter Miami into the dominant team in the MLS?
Has Inter Miami become a good team?
We can estimate a team's strength based on each player’s individual Goalimpact. The team Goalimpact is constituted based on the top 15 players of a club. These players will proportionally play most of the minutes. Goalimpact does not assume to know the system a team will play, so we use a proxy rule that the starting XI must contain 1 goalkeeper, at least 3 defenders, 3 midfielders, and 2 strikers. Not perfect, but good enough.
Until the arrival of the former Barcelona trio, Inter Miami had a team rating of 124. Interestingly, the probable starting eleven of Inter Miami had a relatively high Goalimpact of 131. The issue, however, was that their bench was weak. The following best four players only had an average of 107, decreasing the team strength significantly. Weaker bench players is a general pattern for many MLS teams.Â
One key reason for the imbalance might be organizational:
The league has created somewhat complicated hard-to-track rules, many of which restrain club spending. Thus, the lack of squad depth might be a systemic problem. The most notable rule to help clubs attract talent is the MLS Designated Player (DP) rule, which mainly allows teams to pay up to three players above the yearly salary cap ($612.500 per season).
Because of this limit, Inter Miami had to trade Rodolfo Pizarro. However, this will not significantly affect the Goalimpact of the team. He was an average starting Eleven player for Inter. Back in 2020, Goalimpact would not have advised signing Pizarro, especially considering the discussed fee of 10 Mio USD.
However, to evaluate how good Inter Miami is, it is more important to know how they will do compared to the other MLS clubs.
So - How good is the MLS?
The MLS Competition
The strength of the MLS clubs is relatively even distributed. The gap between the clubs is lower overall compared to European leagues - making the MLS more competitive. The additional appeal of playoffs adds to the general excitement toward the MLS. The high competitiveness also strengthens the game's randomness, making us football addicts. In this respect, the MLS has an advantage over many European leagues.
Only two clubs have a team Goalimpact of around 140: Philadelphia and LAFC. Then, perhaps ten clubs play in the range of 130-140. These teams are neither good nor bad - therefore, they compete for only a few places and hence are subject to a lot of randomness. Also, these clubs would profit most from Goalimpact consulting because they have the highest potential for statistical improvement. The graph below shows the Goalimpacts of the MLS teams.
Within that class, Inter Miami improved by signing Messi, Busquets, and Alba - but not enough to escape the black hole of randomness in soccer.
Although we could suspect that they might reach the playoffs, success remains uncertain. Even more importantly: Will the strategy to buy European legionnaires work in the long run (+3 years)?
Very probably not.Â
Older players (35+) age relatively strongly - mainly athletically. Thus, their performance can still be world-class at its peak, but over multiple games, they are unlikely to remain at this level persistently. Their performance is more volatile. In addition, they can only improve the team for three years, perhaps – then their age becomes too dominant in their performance.Â
This is also why a possible signing of Sergio Ramos would not add a huge benefit to the Inter Miami team. Inter Miami’s defenders are already quite good, although Ramos is still a bit better (145 vs. the two best defenders around 140). His age, however, has a significant impact on his game already. Replacing one of the two defenders would only increase the team's Goalimpact by around 0.5 points, which will not significantly affect how many points Inter Miami will gather. For comparison: A 10-point higher Goalimpact increases the expected points by 6-8 points per season.
The possibility of a Ramos transfer touches on the key question: How do you improve your team in the long run?Â
What would be a strategic approach to becoming the top club in the US?
Strategic Squad ImprovementÂ
The first step in improving a club is to find out what a club needs – to identify the team's weak link. The weak link idea suggests that the weakest player has a strong negative impact on his team because soccer, as a low-scoring game, is decided by errors. Accordingly, a Goalimpact-tailored transfer strategy is to identify squad weaknesses and disbalances and look for positions that would improve the team proportionally more.
In Inter Miami’s case, the left side of the pitch had the most potential for improvement, as the left-back and left-wing positions have the lowest Goalimpact and appear to be the Achilles heel of the club. Consequently, the transfer of Jordi Alba was a first step in tackling this problem, especially after an injury ruled left-back Franco Negri out of the season in late June. Alba’s Goalimpact is not as high as Messi's and Busquets's. His current Goalimpact is above 140. The team Goalimpact benefits overall by approximately +2 points, making it 133 in total.
So, check-box is marked for left-back.
But how about finding a left-winger?Â
Identifying weaknesses is only the initial part of the squad improvement equation. The second step is to find good, low-cost players.Â
This is the Goalimpact niche. We find the Hidden Heroes that traditional scouting and bottom-up data scouting often overlook in the game's complexity. Similarly to the Moneyball blueprint, our algorithm frequently identifies relatively unknown or underrated players with a high Goalimpact and low Transfermarkt value. MLS Examples are Hany Mukhtar or Kai Wagner, both with Goalimpact forecasts over 150 when the market value was still extremely low (less than 2 Mio €). A more prominent example is Kaoru Mitoma, currently playing at Brighton, whom Goalimpact classified with world-class potential already in 2020 when he still played in Japan.
But back to Inter Miami and their left winger.
According to our partner Transfermarkt.com, there was a rumor of Angel Di Maria potentially joining Miami as well. However, he decided to return to his football origins at Benfica Lissabon. DiMaria has, at this point in his career, a Goalimpact of 140. That would add to the short-term quality of Miami. Nevertheless, focusing on old players is not a sustainable long-term strategy, as explained above.
Thus, a more profitable strategy would be to find cheap but promising young talents for the left-wing position. So, what kind of player would Goalimpact recommend?
Let’s say you look for a left winger with a current Goalimpact higher than 150 but the potential to rise to a Peak of 160 or higher. The market value should not exceed 2.5 million $ - and the player should not be older than 24.Â
Can we find someone?
Yes, we can - actually, a couple of players, but here is one example of a Hidden Hero:
This is what makes scouting players with Goalimpact so exciting.
Nevertheless, doing transfers and improving a squad has more factors to consider. The football market is particularly unpredictable in that regard.Â
But we believe that a strategic approach, utilizing objective player ratings, can help clubs achieve their sportive and financial goals much better than a traditional approach.Â
We will curiously observe the unfolding of the MLS and maybe sooner or later participate in the development of the MLS - who knows?
What is Goalimpact?
Goalimpact measures the influence of a player on the goal difference.
It is thus objective player rating system and a risk management tool for signing football players.
For more about Goalimpact, visit our homepage here or call us online right away to explore how we can help your club!