Finally home: Inter Miami fans relish Nu Stadium opener | OneFootball

By Charles Boehm

Should the typical South Florida storms hold off, the weather forecast offers lovely conditions for the grand opening of Nu Stadium, Inter Miami CF’s gleaming, long-awaited new home, when Austin FC visit on Saturday evening: 81 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny with a few scattered clouds (7:30 pm ET | Apple TV).

It’s a bright outlook for an occasion that the Herons’ most devoted supporters have reached while enduring plenty of stormy nights, long commutes and frustrating losses.

Just ask those who have been around since IMCF’s humbling early years – before Lionel Messi and his superstar comrades arrived in July 2023 – when Miami finished 19th, 20th and 12th in the overall MLS table, and saw their inaugural 2020 season disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Back then, the faithful had to savor just having a team again, nearly two decades after the 2001 contraction of Miami Fusion FC.

“It took so long to have something of your own,” Chris Moramarco, co-founder of IMCF supporters’ group Vice City 1986, told MLSsoccer.com last week, “and there are people that were here from day one, and were supporting the club when we were getting killed game after game, and we would still show up, because we were just excited to finally, after 20 years, to have a team. So we knew that, independent of results, we needed to show up and be there. And we did.

“We lived quite a few moments that were just bizarre and just felt desperate, like that day would never come.”

Years in the making

It took years for David Beckham to assemble an ownership group, then settle on a suitable stadium site, with one setback after another as proposal after proposal, location after location, were rejected by various local government authorities.

As the Miami Freedom Park project – which Nu Stadium anchors – inched towards reality, the Herons elected to set up shop 34 miles to the north in Fort Lauderdale, constructing their Florida Blue Training Center where the Fusion’s former Lockhart Stadium home once stood, and building a temporary ground on site.

For all the milestones Messi & Co. marked at that venue, settling in at their permanent house, located a long goal kick or two from the main entrance to Miami International Airport, is a dream come true, particularly for homegrowns like David Ruíz, a native of the nearby Little Havana neighborhood.

“Having the stadium right in the heart of Miami, with all the fans coming out to the matches because it’s now just a stone’s throw from their homes, is very important and creates a special atmosphere,” Ruíz said in Spanish this week.

“Having all our supporters right there with us, I know it’s something that makes us all very happy, and we can’t wait to experience that moment.”

"Always present"

While a necessary step in “our journey,” as Moramarco calls it, IMCF’s residence in Fort Lauderdale imposed a challenging commute for their fans in Miami proper.

“I live down in Pinecrest, near the University of Miami, and the trek is an hour and a half. On a weekday, it could be up to two and a half hours,” he explained. “So if the game is at 7:30, we're there at 3:30, we're there at 3 pm, and then don't leave ‘til almost midnight. It's a journey, and it's your day gone.

“Families that have kids playing soccer at an academy, for instance, some weekends are gone, and that's a reality. The flip side of it is that now all those Miami people are finally going to be able to have that short commute.”

Roberto Rivadeneira lived through those difficult early days, too. He’s a longtime member of the Southern Legion, a supporters' group that predates the club’s on-field debut by more than a decade, founded by soccer fans suffering from the Fusion’s loss, eager to advocate for MLS’s return to South Florida.

“We’re always present. We've been there before Inter Miami. That's a fact,” Rivadeneira recalled. “We were so happy to have a team, a local team, our team, that we didn't care if we lost games.

“As a matter of fact, we celebrated after the games with our band, we were chanting even if they scored three goals against us; that was the beginning. People were saying, ‘Man, these people are crazy. They're celebrating that they lost.’ No, we’re celebrating that we have a team in Miami!”

Messi Effect

The Messi era has been transformative in every sense, IMCF rising from strugglers to superclub as they won Leagues Cup, Supporters’ Shield, and MLS Cup titles over the past three seasons. Along the way, their reputation and revenue soared to levels rarely seen on this continent.

That’s inevitably led outsiders, particularly those with allegiances to competing clubs, to label Herons fans as ‘plastics,’ glory-hunting Johnny-come-latelys lured by Messi and his fellow luminaries. But those on the inside say that’s a surface-level impression that ignores the deeper roots underneath.

“When Messi came, of course it changed the optics,” said Moramarco. “What used to be a family setting with players and front office all of a sudden became like this wall of security.

“Yes, Messi brought some hardcore fans, too. A lot of people washed away, but we now have, I believe, a group that truly understands the depth of what we're doing, and they're there for a Messi, but also because of what we were able to build."

Los Hinchas

There are plenty of foul-weather fans in ‘La Familia,’ the overarching shorthand for the area where the many different supporters' groups who reflect an enormously diverse region gathered in the north end of Chase Stadium, and will do so in the same area of Nu Stadium. Literally.

Ask Rivadeneira, who also vlogs about IMCF at Futbol Miami TV ES, and he’ll proudly show you videos of los hinchas – the hardcores – chanting and singing in high winds and driving rain as the region’s infamous storms wash over exposed stands.

Rivadeneira recalls the tropical storm that blasted the pandemic-capped crowd of 2,400 on the final day of the 2020 regular season, when Miami needed a positive result against FC Cincinnati to qualify for that year’s Audi MLS Cup Playoffs.

“It was a storm above us, rainy and windy,” he said. “La Familia was there during the storm; it was pouring – and this is important, because the rest of America calls us plastic fans.

“We were there during a storm, supporting Inter Miami, with no Messi, with the worst team. We were there … Would plastic fans support their team during storms?”

New beginnings

Rivadeneira is happy to see that roofing will protect most of La Familia’s new stand from sun and rain, though he jokes that he’s used to all-conditions fandom at this point. As luxurious as Nu Stadium will be in comparison to the old days, Miami’s most dedicated supporters are prepared for hiccups on opening day at a facility where the finishing touches are still being applied.

It’s all part of the process for a community living their history in real time.

“It may be a construction site for now. We made jokes that we're probably going to have to come in with our own seats, or a drill to bolt down our section. It doesn't matter – we're excited to be there,” said Moramarco. “Again, we dealt with worse things. So this is just one more of those moments. I think it's awesome that we're at this sort of cusp.

“It's special to know that we were there from that moment. We're going to look back and say, ‘Hey, I walked in that stadium when it first opened.’ Thirty years from now, our sons can look back and say, 'My dad took me and we were there' … That is huge. Those are the memories that we want to instill for future generations, to have those kinds of memories."

Match Trailer | Inter Miami open Nu Stadium vs. Austin FC