Former teammate Josef Martinez: Messi made Miami 'The Real Madrid of MLS' | OneFootball

Many people started watching MLS games after Messi's arrival, but the reality before that massive event was different.

The club was known primarily for being David Beckham's team. Few could even name any players on the Herons, and they were regularly near the bottom of the Eastern Conference.

All of that changed when Messi joined. Journalists and media channels hung on every Inter Miami training session. The number of media members covering each game tripled.

Josef Martínez reflects on Messi's game-changing arrival at Inter Miami.

Martinez arrived at Inter Miami as a free agent at the start of 2023. Being known as a once-lethal striker who had been slowed by his recovery from an ACL tear in 2020, Martinez came into the Herons hoping to find something similar to his best years in Atlanta before the injury.

However, that wasn't the case. In the interview, Martinez expressed how difficult it was to compete at Miami.

"When I joined Inter Miami, it felt like Combat FC," Martinez said in Spanish. "It wasn't really Inter. Messi, Busquets and Jordi hadn't arrived yet. We had lost something like 15 ames."

After finishing last before Messi's arrival, the Herons were the worst team in the league. Despite having an ambitious project, the club lacked the personnel to make it a reality.

Everything changed the moment Lionel Messi set foot in Miami. The Venezuelan striker confessed that everybody wanted to talk to them; suddenly, they were the new sensation.

"People I didn't even know existed wrote to me -- even my godfather, whom I had never met. There were 1,000 journalists outside when before we had only seen one. And 50,000 people showed up for the first training session."

Martinez summed up Messi's huge impact again at the end of the interview with the Venezuela national team-focused podcast:

"With Messi's arrival, we went through a huge transformation. We went from being the worst team to becoming the Real Madrid of MLS. Everything changed. The day Messi debuted, Serena Williams was there -- and that kid named LeBron James too."

Messi's arrival changed the ability of the players in the squad

The public image and new sponsorships weren't the only things Messi brought. The Heron captain also improved the way his teammates developed in the game.

Before Messi, it was difficult, not to say impossible, for Inter Miami to connect intricate passes and then give the striker a deep pass to score a goal.

"(Robert) Taylor couldn't score even on God," Martinez recalled, "and with Messi, he became the team's top scorer. Some players couldn't even complete a pass; with Messi,the level wen up. No one used to watch us, and when Messi arrived, even God was watching.

Inter Miami currently plays cohesively and is arguably the best team in MLS. Competing at the top in every tournament, with many players performing at their peak.