Jordi Alba’s Retirement Marks Turning Point for Inter Miami and Lionel Messi

On Tuesday, Jordi Alba surprised most of us when he announced he would be retiring following the 2025 MLS season, only months after he signed a contract extension that suggested the 36-year-old would play a couple more years as Lionel Messi’s teammate.

Alba’s departure follows that of Sergio Busquets, the recipient of much fanfare at Inter Miami’s last home match Saturday night. The future of Luis Suarez is also unclear.

None of this is expected to disrupt Messi’s reported plans to return to Miami for a multi-year extension that still hasn’t been officially announced. It does, however, mean the future Inter Miami squad that surrounds him will look a lot less like an FC Barcelona alumni gathering.

Instead, it could resemble something closer to the Argentina national team, a group that remains a monster with Messi pulling the strings.

We don’t know if Busquets and Alba were nudged out the door. But we do know that with four players north of age 35 regularly starting, Inter Miami is simply too defensively vulnerable to be considered an MLS favorite, the seemingly ageless Messi be damned.

The Herons have allowed three or more goals 11 times in all competitions this season — basically 25% of their total games played — and they’ve failed to win any of those fixtures.

And they only have four wins in the 18 games that Messi failed to score. Even at his peak, Messi had off days. Now in his twilight, he is playing on a team more singularly reliant on his production than any of his club career. It’s not a recipe for sustained success.

Don’t get it wrong. Messi’s technical ability is still so extraordinary that you can build a team around him. But if there’s a current model for doing it well, it’s not the glory days of the Blaugrana, but the current shape of the Albiceleste, which has united its uniquely talented elder statesman with a robust crop of younger talent in its prime.

While Messi was the story of the 2022 World Cup-winning squad, it’s hard to argue the overall quality of that Argentina group was greater than the failed 2010, 2014, or 2018 editions.

And of the group that qualified for 2026, 17 of the 19 most-used field players are 33 or younger, and 14 of those in their 20s. And we’re talking young stars, full stop: Real Madrid’s Julian Alvarez, Inter Milan’s Lautaro Martinez, Liverpool’s Alexis Mac Allister, Chelsea’s Enzo Fernandez, and so on.

Messi no longer has the legs of a 20-something. But he can still be devastating when there are other elite 20-somethings doing the running and connecting for him, as he showed by leading CONMEBOL scoring while Argentina sealed qualification with several matches to spare.

The Herons probably won’t attract current Champions League stalwarts (though never say never), but they can clearly target players for 2026 and beyond who will be elite technically in MLS, and have a far more athletic profile than Messi’s closest friends from his Barca days.

They already added the 31-year-old Rodrigo de Paul, another Argentina Messi teammate, in a surprising summer deal from Atletico Madrid. Reports have the Herons eyeing 28-year-old Spanish free agent Sergio Reguilon as Alba’s replacement.

Reguilon isn’t expected to command a Designated Player slot, meaning Miami could still make another big splash this offseason, to say nothing of how they might reallocate resources if Suarez also hangs up his boots.

The Herons of 2026 won’t have the same close personal ties to Messi. But he’s had two years to adjust to South Florida, MLS, and life in the United States now. That part isn't necessary.

What the new blood will bring — if all goes to plan — is a greater ability to weather Messi’s off days or his nagging injuries, just as Argentina has, winning four of the six qualifiers that Messi missed.

That would be great news for Herons fans, and a terrible development for the other 29 MLS clubs.