Neymar‘s potential move to Inter Miami has been framed as the perfect opportunity for another reunion with Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, but one former Premier League and Serie A forward believes the move could expose a bigger problem within Major League Soccer.Giuseppe Rossi, the former Manchester United and Villarreal forward who is now Head of Soccer at the New York Cosmos, has warned that bringing Neymar to MLS would be excellent entertainment and marketing, but would do little to improve the quality of football being played in the competition.The Brazilian has been repeatedly linked with a move to Miami, where he could reunite with Messi and Suarez after their hugely successful spell together at Barcelona. For Rossi, however, the question is not whether supporters would want to watch it. It is whether another superstar reunion is actually helping MLS become a stronger football league.
Rossi questions what MLS is trying to become
Rossi made his comments while speaking to GOAL in an interview conducted in association with BetBrothers, and he was particularly critical of the league’s continued reliance on globally famous players to generate attention.MLS has undergone a major transformation through marquee arrivals over the years, with David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Kaka, Andrea Pirlo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Wayne Rooney among the established stars who have moved to the United States.Messi’s arrival in 2023 took that strategy to another level, with the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner becoming the league’s biggest attraction. Inter Miami subsequently surrounded him with several former Barcelona team-mates, including Suarez, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, while Rodrigo De Paul and Casemiro have also joined the club.Neymar could now become the latest superstar to make the move, with his Santos contract due to expire at the end of the year.But Rossi believes MLS risks becoming too focused on the attention generated by those names.“This is where MLS are making mistakes, and they continue to make these mistakes. It’s great marketing, it is what it is, but what kind of product are you putting on the field?” Rossi told GOAL.He specifically questioned the idea of bringing Neymar to Miami simply to recreate the famous Barcelona attack.“Bringing Neymar back to reunite him with Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, what are you trying to become as a league?”
‘You’re moving at a snail’s pace’
Rossi’s concern is not that MLS has failed commercially. Quite the opposite.He acknowledged the league’s substantial growth and the increasing value of its clubs, but argued that the sporting product has not developed at the same rate.“If it’s to get to the level of the big boys out in Europe like the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga and those competitions, you’re moving at a snail’s pace but MLS is very thirsty for clicks and views, and they don’t really care about the standard of the football itself,” he said.Rossi went on to distinguish between the league’s commercial success and its footballing development.“Yes, they have made great strides, and well done to them for that. The valuations of the clubs are high and it’s a great business model but what about the football? Is that growing and moving forward? I don’t think so, and that’s something that has to change.”He believes the underlying issue comes from the priorities of those running the competition.“The problem is that the people in charge don’t really care. They only care about the valuations. That’s the problem when you put these billionaires in charge of a league.”In Rossi’s view, Neymar would therefore be an attractive commercial addition without necessarily addressing the competitive development he believes MLS needs.“They’d love to see Neymar come to MLS and play with Messi again but it’s not going to grow MLS as a football league. That’s what I think.”
Rossi still believes Neymar could benefit from joining Messi and Suarez
Despite his criticism, Rossi was not arguing that Neymar is finished as a footballer.Quite the opposite: he believes the Brazilian could still make a significant impact if he moved to Inter Miami and reunited with Messi and Suarez.
Neymar’s World Cup story
Neymar, now 34, has endured a difficult period with injuries and inconsistent form since leaving European football, and his return to Santos has not produced the sustained revival many expected.But Rossi remains convinced that the player retains the ability to make the move worthwhile on an individual level.“If Neymar could make the move to Miami, why not? It would be great for him, and he’s still a great player. I freaking love Neymar,” Rossi told GOAL.He added that Neymar remains “one of the best players of his generation” and that supporters would naturally want to see him back alongside Messi and Suarez.That is precisely where Rossi sees the contradiction: the reunion could be fantastic for the players, the supporters and the headlines, while simultaneously doing little to address what he sees as MLS’s sporting shortcomings.“I just look at it another way because there are pros and cons to everything, and yes everybody wants to see Neymar but it does take away from the integrity of the products itself by making MLS into even more of a circus than a true football league.”
The prospect of another MSN reunion
Neymar, Messi and Suarez previously formed one of the most devastating attacking partnerships in modern football at Barcelona.Between 2013 and 2017, Neymar scored 105 goals and provided 76 assists in 186 appearances across all competitions for Barcelona, helping the club win eight trophies, including the 2014-15 treble.The possibility of seeing the three together again, this time in MLS, would therefore carry enormous global appeal.For Inter Miami, it would represent another blockbuster addition to a squad that has increasingly become a collection of some of the defining players of the modern era.For MLS, though, Rossi believes the question should go beyond whether another superstar can generate clicks, ticket sales and commercial interest.His warning is essentially about what happens after the spectacle: if the league wants to close the gap with Europe’s strongest competitions, he believes improving the football itself has to matter just as much as attracting the biggest names.
