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Miami Dolphins' Tua Tagovailoa and Inter Miami's Lionel Messi now share the same city.
Their sporting homes and the latter's immediate success is bound to turn up the heat on the NFL player. Not even a full month has passed since the soccer GOAT played his first game for Inter Miami, and he has won a trophy with them.
After he joined for $54 million annual salary for four years, the Argentinian is making it look like a very shrewd investment. His club was going nowhere before he arrived and now they have won the inaugural Leagues Cup. Messi scored in all seven games, finished as the top-scorer in the tournament with 10 goals, and also won the MVP. He lifted the trophy as the captain of the team.
With the NFL season just around the corner, the focus will now shift to Tua Tagovailoa to keep up the pace so that the Miami Dolphins do not become irrelevant in the city's sporting landscape.
Tua Tagovailoa battles history of Miami Dolphins and Lionel Messi's Inter Miami success
The Miami metropolitan area host five major sports teams: the Miami Dolphins in the NFL, the Miami Heat in the NBA, the Miami Marlins in the MLB, the Florida Panthers in the NHL and, most recently, Inter Miami in MLS.
Among them, the Miami Dolphins are the oldest franchise. They were formed in 1966 in the AFL and joined the NFL after the merger in 1970. They had tremendous success at the time, winning the Super Bowl in back-to-back seasons in 1972 and 1973. Their first championship win remains stuff of NFL legends, winning all 14 regular season games and three playoff games for a perfect season.
Since that initial success under coach Don Shula, success has proved elusive, though. They kept having winning seasons but never won the Super Bowl agains despite having Hall-of-Fame quarterback Dan Marino playing for them.
Even if we consider AFC Championship wins, too, where they would have won a trophy, their last victory came in 1984.
To put it into perspective, the other professional sports teams in Miami did not exist at the time.
The Miami Heat were formed in 1988. They have won three NBA Finals, each in this century. They won their first in 2006 before going back-to-back in 2012 and 2013. For the purposes of championships, if we again consider the conference title, they achieved that this year in 2023 before finishing runners-up to the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Finals.
The Miami Marlins and Florida Panthers were both established in 1993. The MLB team has already matched the Dolphins' championship record in the city by winning the 1997 and 2003 World Series titles, going by the name Florida Marlins at the time.
The NHL team has not been so successful and have never won the Stanley Cup. However, since they won conference championship in both 1996 and 2023, they have had the chance of lifting the Prince of Wales Trophy as recently as last year.
And now, Inter Miami have joined the party. They were formed in 2018 and have won the Leagues Cup this year, beating Nashville on penalties. Their pull with David Beckham as part of the ownership group already attracted visibility, which has gone through the roof since Lionel Messi joined.
With everything considered, the Dolphins are in the midst of the biggest drought among current Miami teams when it comes to lifting any kind of championship or trophy. With such a storied history, the pressure is on Tua Tagovailoa to deliver and at least win the AFC Championship.
However, how stacked their division and conference is this season, the quarterback will have to play out of his skin to get anywhere near that aim. The New York Jets and Buffalo Bills, both title contenders, are in their division.
Getting to the Super Bowl through the AFC will potentially require them to get past other top teams like the Kansas City Chiefs, Cincinnati Bengals, Baltimore Ravens and Los Angeles Chargers.
It's certainly not impossible, but it will be tough for Tua Tagovailoa, and Lionel Messi's success in Miami has made the job even tougher.
