Why Messi’s Inter Miami Playoff Chase Could Fall Short

After the stunning reversal Lionel Messi has already engineered at Inter Miami since he arrived last month, you’d be forgiven for thinking a late season charge into the playoff field is inevitable.

Messi officially joined his new team in training only a few days before they opened group play in the Leagues Cup after going winless in 11 consecutive MLS games.

Immediately the Herons began winning and winning big. Messi scored a tournament-best 10 goals and Miami stormed to their first ever major trophy while playing to a 5-0-2 record (W-L-T) and a tournament-best +14 goal differential.

And there’s no denying the individual brilliance of Messi’s performances so far.

But as a team, Miami in those seven games have still fallen short of the kind of quality they’ll probably need to engineer a miraculous late-season charge from the bottom of the Eastern Conference into the playoff places.

Even if Miami earned results at the pace it did in the Leagues Cup — about 2.43 per game — it would finish on 48 points and probably slide into the eighth or ninth spot by the narrowest of margins.

But the quality of chances Miami created and allowed, as shown in their tournament expected goals data, suggests they won’t be able to keep pace if the performances remain the same.

Expected goals are a statistic that assigns a scoring probability to every shot attempt a team and its opponent takes, depending on several factors — the location, the kind of shot, the amount of defensive pressure, etc. The aggregate value of those chances computed into an xG number for and against for each game … i.e. how many goals each team would be expected to score, on average, given the chances taken.

And a corollary stat, goals minus expected goals (G-xG) per 90 minutes, is a measure of how a team’s actual goal difference computes against the goal difference predicted by xG models.

According to numbers from FootyStats.com, Miami’s G-xG per 90 minutes over seven Leagues Cup averaged an enormous +2.38. Meaning if xG data predicted a tie, on average Miami won the game by two goals. And while there are teams who regularly outperform their xG models, to do so by such a wide margin over an extended run of matches is unheard of.

Typically, teams with elite technical ability at the top of European leagues — think present day Manchester City, or previous FC Barcelona sides during Messi’s prime — have a somewhat substantial positive G-xG per 90 minutes. In fact, since FootyStats has relevant data — the start of the 2016-2017 European season — Barcelona outperformed their xG values in every season while Messi was still there.

But Barca never outperformed that statistic by more than +0.72 goals per 90 minutes, less than a third of the rate at which Miami is currently besting its xG data. And those Barcelona teams enjoyed a wider gulf in talent over their peers across an 11-man lineup than Miami, even if Messi is the best in the league by a quantum leap.

Barcelona G-xG per 90

• 2016-2017: +0.72
• 2017-2018: +0.41
• 2018-2019: +0.36
• 2019-2020: +0.28
• 2020-2021: +0.06

Source: FootyStats.com

There’s also no history of an MLS team outperforming its xG by such a large number over the course of the full season. Interestingly, the strongest overperformer in that sample — 2018 D.C. United — has some echoes of this year’s Miami team in that they welcomed their own superstar summer addition, former Manchester United and England star Wayne Rooney.

MLS Leaders, G-xG per 90

• 2022: Philadelphia Union, +0.40
• 2021: Vancouver Whitecaps, +0.24
• 2020: Portland Timbers, +0.37
• 2019: LAFC, +0.33
• 2018: D.C. United, +0.65

Source: FootyStats.com

This doesn’t mean Miami’s playoff chances are nil. You could even argue that the above numbers don’t necessarily apply to the Herons, because they only need to overperform their xG numbers over a smaller 12-game stretch, or roughly a third of a season. That’s still extraordinarily unlikely.

Given historical precedent both in MLS and on Messi’s previous club — the far more realistic way for Miami to earn the 26 or more points they need is for the quality of their play to improve substantially.

They can’t continue to rely primarily on Messi converting low probability chances — as brilliant as he may be at it. They can’t be a team that lags opponents in expected goals. They will have to play as a more consistently dominant team, because the margin of error in digging out of a 14-point hole won’t allow for anything less.