Fortune favors the brave in Nashville, St. Louis ascending & more | Matchday 20

I'm back from Spain. It was nice to unplug from MLS – really, from the Leagues Cup – for two weeks. I needed the downtime. But I'm glad to be back.

One note I want to make here, and I'm going to try not to come off as too cynical about it: this is my third straight summer trip to Spain. During each of the past two, Inter Miami's pink No. 10 "Messi" kit was by far the most popular jersey I saw. By miles. In Spain.

I found this stunning, and had to tip my hat to both the team and the league. For all the frustrations I've had with MLS (ones that, on some level, had eventually gotten me fired), they'd at least gotten it right with distribution, availability and desirability of that particular kit. It had become an entryway, I'd hoped, into real fandom. Greater reach and appreciation and all that came with it.

On this trip I saw zero pink Inter Miami "Messi" kits. I saw just two Inter Miami "Messi" kits in total (both black, both knock-offs), and only one other MLS jersey of any kind (a black LAFC knockoff t-shirt, more than a kit). I didn't even see any MLS jerseys for sale at any of the street hawkers, and I'm pretty diligent about looking.

So in the summers of '24 and '25, the number of MLS jerseys I saw was literally countless. In the summer of 2026, after the US/Canada had hosted the World Cup and two MLS players had made it to the final, the number of MLS jerseys I saw: three.

Does Spain matter as a market for MLS? Not really. But the best and most popular soccer player in the history of the game is still here, and is still one of the three best players in the world, even as he closes in on 40. And the splash he'd made three years ago – one that reached all the way across the pond – has already been reduced to a ripple, despite what he did with Argentina this summer.

The whole thing left me feeling like a huge opportunity had been missed. Maybe I'm wrong. But my suspicion is Larry Berg's got his work cut out for him.