Messi’s Inter Miami signs Tata Martino as coach

Inter Miami announced this Wednesday the signing of Gerardo daddy Martino as the team’s coach. The signing of the Argentine rounds out the ambitious project of the soccer club a little more, which this month reinforced its squad with the stellar additions of Lionel Messi, 36, and Sergio Busquets, 34.

“Welcome Tata”, said a message on the team’s Twitter account, in which the coach’s resume was briefly glossed, “MLS Cup winner [siglas de la liga profesional de futbol estadounidense] and the coach of the year award “, as well as his experience in charge of” the teams of Argentina and Mexico, [del] FC Barcelona and more”. Throughout this career, Martino coached Messi on two occasions, at Barca (2013-2014) and at La Albiceleste (2014-16), an extreme that has undoubtedly weighed in on the signing by a club in which Everything will revolve from now on around the veteran Argentine star.

“We are very happy to welcome Tata to Inter Miami. We feel that he is a coach that matches our ambitions as a club and we are optimistic about what we can achieve together, ”said its president, Cuban-American businessman Jorge Mas, in a statement. “Tata has trained at the highest level and we believe that his experience will be very beneficial for us; our objective is to compete for titles”.

Another of the reasons that led Mas to lean towards Martino, 60, is his status as a title winner (and, therefore, a connoisseur) of the American league. He did it in 2018 at the helm of a team, the recently created Atlanta United. Inter was founded that same year, and began to compete two years later. Right now he is bottom of the Eastern Conference, although he is still alive in the Cup, in which he reached the semifinals a couple of weeks ago. After leaving his job with the Georgia State team, Martino coached the Mexican team until last year.

“The club [por el Inter] It has the necessary infrastructure to be a great competitor in the region and I believe that with everyone’s work and commitment we can achieve it,” the coach said in another statement after the news was released.

The signing of Messi, who rejected offers from Barcelona and Saudi Arabia, fell in Miami a couple of weeks ago as a bomb of hope. Once he is free this week from his commitment to Paris Saint Germain, a team in which he has played two seasons and in which he received a rude farewell from the fans last week, he is scheduled to play his first game on July 21, against the Mexican squad Cruz Azul in the Leagues Cup.

Inter was reinforced on June 23 with Busquets, another history of Barcelona and the Spanish Laliga, who also ignored the Saudi siren songs. He comes to Miami to fill one of the team’s three “designated player” spots reserved for the highest-paid soccer players and who don’t count when calculating the salary limit. Which will be the third of these stars is still unknown, although sources from the Florida club confirm that talks with another ex-Barca player, Jordi Alba, are currently open. Also, more announcements are coming. Luis Suarez and Angel DiMaria, other names that the local press had considered, seem ruled out.

Mas aspires with his new Inter to pull the car of the football in the United States, a sport that has been threatening to explode for decades. The concatenation of the celebration in the United States of the Copa America for national teams will also contribute to the sum of these big names, next year, the Club World Cup, the following year, which has a new format, with 23 participants, and the culmination of the World Cup. of national teams, of which the country will host in 2026, along with Mexico and Canada.

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