Mascherano out in Miami, who deserves the blame in Cincy & more | Mailbag
Miami's embarrassing lack of stability, a new hole to dig out of in Cincy, and the most exciting US teenager isn't who you think
Both this website and the 2026 MLS season are two months old, and in that time I'd yet to write a single mailbag. That's a bad job by me! Big oversight there.
Thus today I am here to rectify that. Note that I'll still be trying to answer most of the questions you guys pose in the comments section (I'd let that go over the past week, which comes down to real life interfering with my regular duties), but obviously I'll be going more comprehensive when I answer in column form.
Expect this to be a pretty regular feature. I'm aiming for at least one mailbag per month.
Naturally I'm going to start this with something that's not even a question for the mailbag, but a bit of news that dropped as I was writing:
BREAKING: Javier Mascherano is OUT as Inter Miami head coach.
— Tom Bogert (@tombogert.bsky.social) 2026-04-14T16:52:52.724Z
Before I really get into this, here's a bar from someone who knows a lot of stuff about the inner workings at Inter Miami. Ready?
"Everything that happens at this club is Messi related, directly or not."
Javier Mascherano is (was?) one of Messi's closest friends. Think he'd be gone if Leo really, really wanted him to still be in town? I don't! YMMV, but keep that in mind as you parse the slow trickle of news that comes out on this story.
Okay, now for my initial reaction: no matter how it happened, this is embarrassing from Inter Miami.
If they forced out Mascherano five months after he won MLS Cup last year it isn’t just harsh, it’s incoherent. He didn't stumble his way into that title: he actually did tactical problem-solving for a flawed roster. Repeatedly and in different ways, all against teams that spent the year specifically game-planning for the Herons. First last and always.
What made it impressive wasn’t just the trophy, but the process. Month to month you could see the adjustments, as he changed both the build-out shape to protect a shaky backline as well as the midfield rotations to get more out of aging stars without sacrificing defensive structure. Their pressing triggers and phase-based game management made more and more sense as the season went along, and weren't all just vibes or vibes-adjacent tryhard bullshit.