- Inter Miami with Lionel Messi is scheduled to play Real Salt Lake in Utah next year.
- Messi is one of the greatest and most popular soccer players of all time.
- Several international soccer stars now play for Major League Soccer teams.
Some of the best soccer players in the world are making their way from Europe to play on Major League Soccer teams as the sport gains momentum in the U.S. amid transformational changes over the next couple of years.
And one of those players will bring his talents from South Beach when his club takes on Real Salt Lake at America First Field next spring.
RSL released its 2026 schedule Thursday, the last season MLS will play before transitioning to a new competition calendar in 2027. The club will play a 34-game MLS regular-season schedule, with 17 matches at home and 17 away, starting Feb. 21 in Vancouver.
April 22 is the date to circle. That’s when Inter Miami CF comes to town with the best player in the world, Lionel Messi.
“It is a can’t-miss event,” said Steve Starks, CEO of the Larry H. Miller Company, which owns RSL. “He’s the Beatles. He’s Elvis.”
Who is Lionel Messi?
The 38-year-old Argentine forward is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in history. His many accolades include leading Argentina to the 2022 World Cup title. He played for Barcelona in the Spanish league for many years before moving on to Paris Saint-Germain in France. He joined Inter Miami in 2023. He led MLS in both goals and assists in the 2025 regular season.
“Many of us recall iconic sports moments in our lifetimes. Watching the great Lionel Messi play in the heart of the Wasatch will be inspiring to fans, young players and our community at large,” said Steve Miller, RSL chairman and governor.
Messi just signed a three-year contract extension that will keep him in Miami until he’s almost 42 as the team builds a $1 billion stadium.
“It makes me really happy to stay here and to continue with this project that, besides being a dream, has become a beautiful reality — playing in this stadium, at Miami Freedom Park,” Messi said in a team statement. “Since I arrived in Miami, I’ve been very happy, so I’m truly glad to keep going here.”
Messi along with South Korea’s Son Heung-Min of Los Angeles FC and Germany’s Thomas Müller of the Vancouver Whitecaps are among the international stars who have signed with MLS teams in the past year or so.
Son and Müller will make appearances with their teams in Utah, as will Mexican star Chucky Lozano of San Diego FC and another German standout, Marco Reus, with the LA Galaxy.
Starks said he expects the Inter Miami game alone to boost season and single-game ticket sales. Messi is arguably the most famous athlete on the planet. Utah hasn’t seen a worldwide megastar like him since Michael Jordan played against the Jazz in the 1990s. RSL did not play Inter Miami this past season.
Season tickets and four-game packages, including the Inter Miami game, can be accessed through the club’s priority ticket waitlist at RSL.com.
“Next year’s slate brings players and teams to the pitch that will unite and inspire our local sports and entertainment community,” said John Kimball, RSL president of business operations. ”Major League Soccer is on the rise, and today’s announcement highlights this momentum.”
Messi’s anticipated arrival to play RSL is scheduled just weeks before Argentina will defend its title as the 2026 World Cup takes over the United States. Utah won’t host any games because it doesn’t have an NFL stadium. But Starks said several countries have inquired about taking up residence at the RSL training facility for the tournament.
MLS aligns itself with the world
Starting in 2027, MLS will align its season with world’s top soccer leagues, adopting a summer-to-spring schedule, one of the most significant developments in the league’s history. It also will have a 14-game sprint season in spring 2027 ahead of the new regular season format.
MLS commissioner Don Garber said the change marks a new era for the league and soccer in North America.
“Aligning our schedule with the world’s top leagues will strengthen our clubs’ global competitiveness, create better opportunities in the transfer market, and ensure our Audi MLS Cup Playoffs take center stage without interruption,” he said in a statement last week.
The 2027-28 MLS regular season will begin in mid to late July 2027 and conclude with the playoffs in late May 2028. Like other major international leagues, it will take a winter break from mid-December through early February, with no league matches scheduled in January.
Starks said that the new schedule that allows greater player transfers back and forth is important because MLS increasingly attracts the best players in the world. It also moves the playoffs to warmer weather in May and out of the shadow of the NFL and college football seasons, which dominate the airwaves and sponsorship dollars in the fall.
“That’s important because people love the intrigue and drama of playoffs and so this places it in a much better playoff window on the calendar,” he said.
It also helps gain sponsors that are otherwise crowded out in November, making for a stronger commercial aspect to the playoffs, which Starks said is important for the growth of the league.
Baby, it’s cold outside
The schedule change will impact RSL, which could find itself playing home games in winter conditions.
“It will be an adjustment. It will also be a home field advantage,” said Starks, adding he anticipates few home games in the cold weather. He also expects fans will turn out regardless. “We have a very loyal fan base,” he said. “We’ve seen that, even in colder weather games.”
Dave Checketts, who founded RSL in 2005 and sold the club in 2013, said aligning the MLS schedule with the world’s leagues is long overdue.
“It’s never felt right to be on a different calendar than the rest of the world,” he said, adding the league discussed it 22 years ago. “I just never dreamed that it could happen because you’ve got all these cold-weather cities. Actually, Utah is better off, in my view, than Chicago or Boston or even New York.”
Checketts said it’s the right thing to do because it lines up international transfer windows. “You just won’t have your best players leaving you in the middle of competition to go play for their international teams,” he said. “If you’re playing in the summer, that’s what’s going to happen and it creates an uneven playing field for all of the teams.”