Where do you go after Lionel Messi, Major League Soccer? ?
This is not just a question MLS will ponder, but one soccer in general has been thinking about for some time. It has led to a desperate trend of labelling every promising youngster the “next Messi”, but such was (and remarkably still is) the Argentinian’s quality, that there may not be another player at his level for decades. There may never be one.
If the wider soccer world is struggling with this, what chance does MLS have? It will be almost impossible to replicate the social media hits, the record-breaking attendances across North America, the Inter Miami shirts seen around the world and the unprecedented media coverage of the league.
The solution may be more obvious than it first appears, and may be better for the sport in the US than any player, even Messi. Its feasibility increased on Friday when it was officially announced that Pep Guardiola will leave Manchester City this summer.
If you’ve reached a peak in one area by signing the best player ever, the best next step is lateral. The league should not target a player but a manager to become MLS’s crown jewel. And who better to provide a link to Messi after his departure than his mentor.
There could be an upside for Guardiola too. He has achieved everything he can in European club football – from the Champions League to domestic titles and cups – so why not move to a different continent altogether?
This is reflected in the role he will assume immediately on leaving Manchester City. He will become a “global ambassador” at City Football Group, with responsibilities that include “giving technical advice to clubs in the group”, one of which is MLS’s New York City FC.
Another possible move away from the day-to-day of club coaching would be to manage a national team. Guardiola has been linked to the USMNT job in the past, but he has suggested he wants to take a long break from coaching. “I need to breathe a little bit and relax. I will be out for a while,” he said on Friday.
The timing of his sabbatical – and a possible return – could align well with NYC FC’s move to their own soccer-specific stadium at Willets Point in Queens. The lure of a new beginning in a new stadium in New York could be attractive for a coach who already has a relationship with the city, having chosen it as the base for his year-long break between the end of his time with Barcelona in 2012 and the beginning of his tenure at Bayern Munich in 2013.
“New York represented a fresh start,” Guardiola biographer Martí Perarnau wrote in his book, Pep Confidential. “He wanted a chance to switch off, forget the past, and discover new ideas. This was an opportunity to recharge his batteries and top up the reserves of energy that had become so depleted.”
New York City seems like the last place for someone to “switch off”, but elite managers like Guardiola, who are constantly looking to improve and evolve, never really have down time. A recharging Guardiola plugged in to New York City to learn, expand horizons and then apply that to future managerial projects. “He chose New York for his sabbatical because the city intrigued him … He thrives on New York’s culture,” the Financial Times noted in 2013.
A recent line of clothing released by Man City to mark Guardiola’s 10 seasons at the club features a large “P” for Pep, where a team logo would normally be. It was distinctly American in its look, perhaps influenced by his interest in US sports culture.
“This is something that happened during his time in New York for his sabbatical,” says Jon Mackenzie, author of the upcoming book, The Spectre of Pep: How Guardiola Haunts Modern Football Tactics.
“He’s just a curious guy with a lot of interests outside football, and I suspect he would treat the opportunity to be in the US as a way of expanding his horizons again. He might find the US a generative place to be from a cultural and intellectual perspective.”
When it comes to those modern tactics, MLS would present a challenge unlike any other Guardiola has faced. At the same time, just as a domestically dominant Bayern gave him a chance to experiment with new ideas with a slightly lower risk of losing matches, MLS offers the chance to use the extended group stage that is the regular season to experiment and try to build a playoff-winning setup within the league’s roster limitations.
It would also go some way towards answering another question often sent the way of Guardiola: what could he do with more limited resources? While there is increasing flexibility, a salary cap restricts the wage bill outside the league’s designated players such as Messi and another former Guardiola student, Thomas Müller. There are no limitations on what a franchise can spend on staff, though, opening the door for an ambitious owner to make a move.
Where better for Guardiola to try to change soccer than in the country where it is not the only game in town? Where the top division is regularly omitted in discussions of the region’s “big leagues”, but where participation levels are high, and there is a long-held belief that there is huge, untapped potential. A City Football Group club about to get its own soccer-specific stadium within New York’s five boroughs could appeal.
MLS won’t be able to find its next Messi because there isn’t one, but attracting the guy who helped make Messi the player he is could have an even bigger and longer-lasting impact on the US game.
