Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports
On July 15, Major League Soccer, the United States’ premier soccer league, announced that Inter Miami had retained the services of Lionel Messi, the 36-year-old Argentinian forward and former FC Barcelona legend—who is widely thought of as the greatest soccer player of his generation.
Though Messi is past his prime, he is still very good. After leaving Spain, Messi went to Paris St. Germain in France’s Ligue 1—a good league but not, you know, the Spanish League or the English Premier League. He was great on a team that underachieved, but started to really feel the stress of nonstop public life as an insanely famous soccer player in Europe, playing under severe scrutiny.
But, like other European stars before him, Lionel was blessed with a middle path between the drudgery of retirement and the nonstop pressure of the UEFA Champions League: The United States of America.