Will Messi be banned after no-show? Plus: MLS calendar change talks, Spain reach Euros final

New York Times

24-07-2025

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Hello! Lionel Messi skipped Major League Soccer's All-Star game. The league is under pressure to respond in kind.
On the way:
Let's get the basic details out of the way first. Major League Soccer's finest took care of its 2025 All-Star game last night, beating a Liga MX select side, 3-1. Gilberto Mora, the 16-year-old sensation, did his stock no harm by scoring for Mexico's representatives (below). Fun was had by all.
But the main topic of conversation in Austin centred on a particular player who didn't show: Lionel Messi. Two other big names, Jordi Alba and James Rodriguez, were conspicuous by their absences too but with the best will in the world, nobody was talking about them. MLS' poster boy swerving its annual showpiece gave the event an awkward narrative.
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Messi was slated to appear in the All-Star fixture because, duh, he's Major League Soccer's main man by a mile, in performance terms and profile terms. The Inter Miami forward choosing to take the evening off puts MLS in an unenviable position. Technically speaking, punishment should follow.
MLS rules have long held that anybody declining an All-Star call-up for reasons other than injury will be hit with a suspension. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, then at LA Galaxy, was banned for one game after sitting out the 2018 edition. 'It's ridiculous,' Ibrahimovic said, with trademark diplomacy. 'They do whatever they want. I come from a different world. I come from the real world.'
Miami, as yet, have not indicated that Messi is injured. All the noises say that after Club World Cup duty and then five MLS fixtures in 15 days (in which he scored eight goals), the 38-year-old opted for a spot of rest. We're waiting with interest to see how the league responds.
Club Leon's Rodriguez dropping out of the Liga MX line-up is neither here nor there. The Mexican league has no regulations or sanctions covering withdrawals. MLS does and if it pulls ranks with Messi and Alba, both could miss Miami's game against Eastern Conference leaders FC Cincinnati on Saturday — a key fixture, with implications for the Supporters' Shield.
The temptation to treat Messi with kid gloves will be there, though. For the past two years, he's been the face of MLS, generating publicity for the league like no player before him (and adding value to Apple TV's 10-year, $2.5bn broadcast contract). Some would say he's bigger than MLS itself, and an icon that league officials would want to keep happy — not least because his contract with Miami expires after this season.
All MLS commissioner Don Garber would say last night was that he and his colleagues were 'managing through that process (of whether to discipline Messi and Alba) as we speak'. 'We have an All-Star game that we think is a real priority,' Garber said. 'It is an important midseason break for us.'
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MLS places a lot of weight on the occasion but it's a fixture of no competitive consequence, and in that context, I see where Messi is coming from. He turned 38 a month ago today and his physical reserves aren't as deep as they used to be. MLS could seek to fudge this one out. But rules are rules… right?
At a specially-convened press conference yesterday, Garber had a whole lot more to say about the future of his league. Changes are afoot and in reality, they ought to be. The MLS commissioner revealed that its games are drawing an average TV audience of 120,000 — an increase of 50 per cent on the 2024 season, seemingly, but a modest number still.
The competition wants to adjust its play-off and roster systems but by far the biggest proposal is a switch of calendar from the current spring-winter schedule (the way of things ever since MLS' launch in 1996) to a autumn-spring fixture list, aligning with Europe and, therefore, the European transfer window.
An official vote hasn't been taken so far but Paul Tenorio did some digging and established that 27 of the 30 MLS owners are in favour of the switch. The existing season dates took into consideration the wide range of climates in the U.S. and the fact that, for a while each year, its main viewing competition would be Major League Baseball. Today, the title-deciding MLS Cup play-offs are up against the sharp end of the NFL and college football regular seasons, baseball's World Series and the beginning of the new NBA and NHL campaigns, all of them, turning eyeballs elsewhere.
In short, it's going to happen. We just don't know when exactly. MLS has been evolving for almost 30 years and it feels like time for the competition to partially reinvent itself again.
The women's European Championship this summer really is all about the goalkeepers. This, above, is how close Spain came to elimination in Switzerland yesterday, rescued by Cata Coll with literally the last touches of normal time in their semi-final. Recovering from inside the net might come to be her defining moment.
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They went on to edge past Germany 1-0 when Ann-Katrin Berger — she of the wondersave to match all wondersaves in the previous round— allowed Aitana Bonmati to beat her at her near post deep in extra time (below). An attritionally frantic (and hitherto goalless) contest needed somebody to force the issue, and who else but the best women's player in the world?
Bonmati came into the Euros with a question mark over her health. In the days leading up to it, she was admitted to hospital with a bout of viral meningitis, but footballers of her ilk stare such things in the face and do not blink. Did Bonmati mean that finish? Was it a fluke? Who cares? As England's win over Italy in the other semi-final on Tuesday showed, finding a way is all that matters.
TAFC likes to acknowledge random or exemplary pieces of skill, and here's one from Champions League qualifying this week: Mons Bassouamina overhead-kicking like a demon for Pafos of Cyprus in their 1-1 draw with Israel's Maccabi Tel Aviv.
The deflection towards him veers up so steeply that it's virtually dropping from space. It's about the best judgement of a high ball I can remember seeing, and worth the admission fee on its own.