Mic’d Up: McCarty breaks down the MLS Cup – why benching Suárez was a “career-defining” call, how Müller made Vancouver must-watch, and which side he thinks has the edge.

In the lead-up to the 2025 MLS Cup, Dax McCarty was asked to pick a combined XI from the two finalists: Inter Miami and the Vancouver Whitecaps. It’s a familiar exercise before a big game, largely because it’s an easy way to spotlight players to watch and the matchups that could ultimately decide things.

This one, though, wasn’t so easy. McCarty genuinely struggled. There was simply too much talent to choose from, he says. It stressed him out – and, oddly enough, made him even more excited for the final.

“Both of these teams are loaded,” the longtime MLS midfielder turned Apple TV analyst told GOAL. “It’s one of the hardest things I’ve had to do as an analyst. You go through both teams and it’s impossible. If everyone had to put together a combined XI for these teams, I think they’d all be different.”

Such is the nature of this final. On one side: Lionel Messi and friends, leading an Inter Miami team chasing immortality. On the other hand: Vancouver, no plucky underdog, but a group headlined by Thomas Muller and supported by Sebastian Berhalter, Andrés Cubas, Tristan Blackmon, and Emmanuel Sabbi – all playing the best soccer of their careers.

McCarty previewed the matchup in the latest edition of Mic’d Up, GOAL’s recurring feature that brings the perspective of analysts, announcers, and other voices on the state of soccer in the U.S. and beyond.

Getty Images SportON THE MLS PLAYOFFS

GOAL: Every year, there's this debate and discussion about what the MLS Cup Playoffs should look like and, every year, that doesn't really matter because they turn out to be chaotic and entertaining anyway. What has been your big takeaway from this postseason, given everything we've seen?

MCCARTY: The playoffs have been dramatic. They've been exciting. I couldn't have asked for much more, to be completely honest.  I think we've seen drama. I think we've seen great games. I think we've seen great coaching. I think that's a kind of a big out thing that sticks out for me in terms of, I think, where we're at in MLS. 

Of course, we've had great players throughout Major League Soccer's existence, and we've had superstars, and we've had really good teams, but I think one thing that's definitely been an outlier this year, but also in these playoffs, because we just saw it in the conference finals, is that the level of coaching has improved dramatically. That's not to say that we haven't had great coaching in the past. I just think that the teams now, especially the teams in the conference finals, that's a proof of concept that you don't necessarily need to have a manager who has all this knowledge of the quirky MLS rules and calendar to be successful. That was kind of a narrative that a lot of people bought into, and certainly with the likes of Bob Bradley and Bruce Arena, the Sigi Schmids, the Brian Schmetzers, that holds a lot of water: the success that domestic coaches have had in MLS. 

I think this year, specifically, especially if you look at the conference finals and all four coaches being in the conference finals in their first year, I don't think that that's necessarily the case now anymore. I think that you can look outside the box. You can be a little bit more creative. The global market is certainly true for a player pool, but I think now that's shifting to also being true for a coaching pool as well. 

AdvertisementGetty Images SportON MESSI AND INTER MIAMI

GOAL: You've been around this team for a long time, but none of us have ever seen anything like Messi and Inter Miami. They're an outlier in the sense that they can just outscore you, and there's not much you can do to stop it. What do you think about them?

MCCARTY: Yeah, they certainly seem to be a juggernaut right now, the likes of which we haven't seen, especially in the playoffs. Inter Miami had an up-and-down season. If we want to take their season as a whole, yes, they had some very high highs, but they've also had some lows, and they've also not won a trophy this year. You have to obviously take their season in totality to really judge everything that's happening, but if we want to break it down in just their playoff run, it's been spectacular. 

I think Javier Mascherano made the biggest and best decision of his young coaching career to put Luis Suarez on the bench. I've been vocal that that was the right decision, and it must have been a difficult decision, but Inter Miami is certainly finding their best form at the right time, and it's because they have balance now. They've got young legs around Lionel Messi. He's always had a sort of free role, but now, with younger legs around him, it's even more free. He's free to do what he does best, which is score spectacular goals, but he's also free to create and to drop a little bit deeper in midfield and kind of be that conduit between midfield and attack.

One thing you said that really stands out is that you're not going to really be able to keep Inter Miami off the score sheet. That doesn't seem to be something that is likely to happen, so you're going to have to outscore them. You're going to have to hope that their back line, which has been significantly better recently, kind of reverts back to the mistake-prone back line that we saw a few months ago, but your focus has to be on Messi. 

GOAL: How do you stop them? If you're playing in a one-game cup final, what do you do about it?

It frustrates me to no end when I see teams just giving Messi time and space on the ball in midfield and not tracking his runs into the box. Go back to the first goal that he scored against FC Cincinnati in that Eastern Conference semifinal, and it's unacceptable for Messi to be scoring a header in that type of situation. It's a great play. It's a great ball by Silvetti, so don't take anything away from the actual attacking movement in play, but you have to make sure that when Messi gets the ball in the final third, he's going to look to pass it and then get the ball back at some point in the box so he can finish in one touch. It frustrates me when teams don't game plan for that, and when players lose track of where he is, because he's going to get his chances and he's going to beat you in certain ways, but don't let him beat you in the obvious ways. 

That's kind of where I'm at with it. Look, Vancouver, they've done it already this year, right? So if there's one team that I think matches up really well with Inter Miami, and who won't be scared to go in there and go toe to toe with them, as far as goalscoring is concerned, it's definitely this Vancouver Whitecaps team.

GettyON PRESSURE

GOAL: Whenever you get to a cup final, there's pressure, right? For Inter Miami, though, it's a different beast because the world is watching Messi, fairly or unfairly. How much pressure are they under?

MCCARTY: Inter Miami is under a different level of pressure, and anyone who thinks differently is kidding themselves.

This is a team that's been built to win trophies, been built to win every single trophy that they compete for. Full credit to David Beckham and the Mas brothers and their ownership group for swinging for the fences. You couldn't have made a better signing, obviously, with Leo Messi. If he's not still the best player in the world, he's certainly still in the top five or 10, and he's definitely the best player in Major League Soccer. So now it's about how you maximize his time here in Major League Soccer by filling that trophy cabinet up. 

Lionel Messi has been a transcendent signing for the league. I think his legacy and his career are set in stone in terms of being the greatest player that's ever lived, but with that comes an added responsibility that, if you take his MLS legacy and put it off to the side, he's going to be judged on on the trophies that he's won, an MLS Cup being one of the most important. So there is an extra amount of pressure on Inter Miami now, especially with the form they're in and them being able to host the final and play at home. Then you add in the fact that Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, two of the greatest players of this generation, are retiring after this. It would be seen as a massive, massive disappointment if they do not win MLS Cup. There's no other way to put it. You shouldn't sugarcoat it. I don't know if I'd go as far to say the season would be some sort of catastrophic failure, because I believe that Lionel Messi is going to win back-to-back MVPs, but certainly you expect them to win trophies, and if they go a whole season without winning a trophy, that has to be seen as a disappointment.

ENJOYED THIS STORY?

Add GOAL.com as a preferred source on Google to see more of our reporting

ImagnON MULLER'S IMPACT IN VANCOUVER

GOAL: You know what it's like to play with a superstar, and I'm sure there were times with that Red Bull team that you looked around and said, 'We have Thierry Henry and they don't, so we'll be fine'. The Whitecaps brought in their superstar, Thomas Muller, and added him to a team that was already very, very good. How does bringing in someone like that make a team go from very good to great?

MCCARTY: Yeah, there's a different level of confidence that flows through that locker room when you know you have a superstar you can rely on….I've been impressed with Thomas Muller on the field. How can you not be? His goal-scoring return has been excellent. He's fit in tactically with exactly what Jesper Sorensen wants to accomplish, but it's also off the field where you're more impressed. 

The fact that he has come in and he has elevated the level of every single player around him, he has raised the expectations for what that club is. Vancouver has always been a really good club. They've been a well-run club that has had success in the past. They've won multiple Canadian championships. They've been a pretty consistent qualifier for the playoffs, but they haven't really been able to get over the hump and get over the line when it comes to really challenging and being, I think, in the spotlight within the national conversation of Major League Soccer. They're firmly in that conversation now. It's not just because they've gone on a good run this year. They have so many fun storylines to talk about all throughout that team, and Muller is absolutely one of them in the way that he's changed that team and galvanized them to be more confident. Sebastian Bearhalter, the steps that he has taken this year. Sorensen,  how impressive he has been in replacing a very good coach in Vanni Sartini, and almost taking that team to another level. 

The way that I'll end the conversation about Vancouver is the fact that they are a must-see team every time they are on the field. They are fun to watch. They have a distinct identity and style of play, and they play the same whether they're at home or on the road. That is something that is rare to find in Major League Soccer. You won't find a more well-balanced team in terms of a team that can hurt you and outscore you in attack, and then also a team that can defend and has an identity to keep clean sheets. Talk all you want about Inter Miami and the talent they have and the way that they're playing an attack. Absolutely, it's deserved, but Vancouver has been the more impressive team throughout the season in terms of their balance and in terms of the fact that they can beat you in a multitude of different ways.

The league has survived exile, spot-fixing, Covid, bad anthems, different board heads, four different prime ministers and two caretakers. Yet here it is in all its glory

Osman Samiuddin12-Apr-2025On the flight home after he had bought the PSL’s most expensive franchise, Karachi Kings, Salman Iqbal, the business and media tycoon, remembers being told by everyone he had made a mistake. A massive mistake. His employees at the ARY Group continued to tell him much the same. For days afterwards he couldn’t sleep, disbelieving of what he had done. Biggest mistake of his business career? His life?It’s easy to forget the fraught, fragile place in which Iqbal had bought those rights in December 2015, for US $26 million (over 10 years). Talk of a Pakistan T20 league had been going on since 2008. Chairmen had come, chairmen had gone, opportunities peaked, opportunities troughed, but a league remained absent. The IPL was already booming, Bangladesh had started the BPL, West Indies the CPL. Pakistan was nearly seven years into its exile era. Even with a league, there was no timeline for when it might come home and no chance foreign stars would come to Pakistan. The PCB had not fully recovered from a period of leadership turbulence (between Najam Sethi and Zaka Ashraf). The BCCI was ignoring them, the Big Three had cast them aside.Actually, it shouldn’t be so easy to forget because, tenth season upon us (PSL X does have a zeitgeisty, and kind of adult, zing to it) and look around. Pakistan cricket is again – still? – a pretty fraught place. Struggling on the field. Not fully recovered from a period of administrative turbulence (featuring Najam Sethi and Zaka Ashraf). The BCCI ignoring them harder than ever (other than when it’s making life difficult for them), the big three (now small-capped because they’re more disingenuous about it) casting them aside.Related

Fakhar and Billings open Qalandars' account with resounding win

PCB's women's T20 league to run alongside PSL 2023

PSL franchises accept PCB's offer of new financial model

PSL franchises incurred big losses in first two seasons

Iqbal says the decision to buy Kings was not a business decision. It was one he made with his heart. To some extent, most, if not all, those first buyers, were the same. In that sense those decisions ring closer to Malcolm Gladwell’s thesis about the owners of sports teams and the psychic benefits of owning those teams. It’s not too long to read but in short he argues sports team are like works of art: there is a measurable value and then there is a value on top, the bit of owning it that speaks to the owner’s heart: the psychic benefit.Not that the PSL has been bad business. Not at all for the PCB. Indeed, as a report in the Pakistan business weekly made clear last year, the league was the board’s biggest source of revenue for five years until 2022 – essentially from its inception. A period where international cricket had not fully returned to Pakistan the pandemic had upended the game. It is no longer the biggest slice. The ICC’s current revenue distribution model, which has doubled the PCB’s share to about $34 million annually, holds that distinction.But here is a simple gauge of the PSL’s enduring value to Pakistan cricket. The current broadcast deal for the league is worth over $30 million across two seasons, while the PCB’s home bilateral rights, for a comparable period, recently went for approximately a fifth of that.It hasn’t always been so profitable for the franchises, though it wasn’t entirely on them, because a financial model in which they paid franchise fees in US dollars but were earning in Pakistan Rupees was stacked against them. The Pakistan economy has been through a hell of a ride since then, and not a fun one. At the start of 2016, when the franchises came in, the rupee was around 105 to the dollar; it is currently around 280.The 2024 opening ceremony attracted some stars too – singers Ali Zafar and Aima Baig•AFP/Getty ImagesThe franchises did eventually convince the PCB to fix that rate, as part of a new financial model they agreed on in 2021. A considerably bigger slice of the total league revenue is now shared between the franchises. They received financial help for two Covid-battered seasons. That has helped the situation. Not all franchises are consistently in the black, but they do each make approximately $4.5 million every season from their share of that central pool and their own commercial deals. In that time, a couple of the lower-value franchises have shown it is possible to run it as a profitable business and be successful.What of its cricket impact? Well, what of it? It feels necessary to preface this, that the fortunes of Pakistan’s cricket teams – past, present, future – are beholden to the PCB, the PSL. Of course, the PSL helps players to evolve, to add some nous and some sheen. But it is not primarily how or where cricketers are found or, more relevantly to Pakistan, made sustainable. That will – and should – always be the PCB’s job. And Pakistan’s recent downturn in results is quite clearly linked to the actions of successive PCB administrations.Still, if you insist on looking at records pre- and post-PSL, you’ll not be able to make any definitive point. Pakistan are as they have always been. Eerily so, in fact. Here is the Pakistan men’s team win-loss record in all international cricket in the ten years to the first PSL versus the years since: 1.130 (fifth-best among Full Members) vs 1.138 (seventh out of 12). They had the third-best win-loss record in T20Is in the decade before the PSL (1.50), and the fourth-best win-loss record in the years since (1.375). One white-ball trophy before, one since. ESPNcricinfo’s statsguru doesn’t have a metric ratio for talent unearthed against talent wasted, but I think we can all assume with confidence it’s the same pre-PSL as it is post-PSL. Probably down to the last decimal point.But you know what tangible impact? Bringing international cricket back to Pakistan. To that end, has there been a more seminal game than the 2017 PSL final, with eight foreign players at the Gaddafi Stadium? A World XI visit followed later that year, then the PSL’s qualifiers in Pakistan the following season, then more the next and then, bang, normalisation. Inestimably better earnings for a breed perennially among the world’s lowest paid, is also tangible impact. Ditto better opportunities for an army of former cricketers, in coaching roles, or as support staff. And there is probably a fascinating study waiting to be done on the economic activity the PSL generates in the country every year.Fans in Lahore were delighted (even if their expressions don’t say so) when cricket returned to Pakistan in 2017•AFPTo be honest, it would have been enough of an achievement to last 10 seasons, let alone any of this. What, after all, lasts that long in the corrosive environment that is Pakistan cricket? The PSL has survived exile. It has survived spot-fixing. Covid. Bad anthems. Seven different tenures of board heads, a couple of whom have inadvertently cannibalised it with their own vanity projects. More bad anthems. Four different prime ministers and two caretakers. The arrival of new, monied leagues. All of it to become, more or less, a fixture in the calendar which, in a country that daily with such dizzying force and speed, is an invaluable bit of groundedness.The next ten seasons are probably even more important because there is so much still to do. Above all, a women’s equivalent, the idea of which has been paid lip service to by some administrations and ignored by the rest. It may need franchise involvement, or for the PCB to do the initial heavy lifting but there is no doubt it needs to happen. Smaller steps, like taking the league to cities such as Peshawar and Faisalabad, can reap easy but meaningful rewards; and imagine the atmosphere in these venues, starved for so long of top-flight cricket.The league will get bigger, with up to two more teams likely to be added from next season, which is about the right number for a one-sport country the size of Pakistan. Bids will be made once this season is over, and after a valuation exercise of the league has been completed. It’s early but word is that interest is healthy among local businesses, and according to a couple of officials, a little foreign interest too.The existing franchise, whose leases run out this season, will have to negotiate a new franchise fee if they want to continue (with a minimum increase of 25% baked in). Most, if not all, of them do, but foremost on their agendas should be to no longer be leaseholders in the league. They should push for franchise rights in perpetuity. The PSL is the house they have built over ten years, at considerable cost; they should not be treated as tenants.These negotiations will not be straightforward, not least the prospect that existing franchises will have to share revenues with more teams going forward. The league’s media and sponsorship rights are up for renewal and no guarantee there will be more money in the market in the next cycle (that not-fun Pakistan economic ride). And yet, despite this and given the ILT20 and SA20, the PSL will have to find a way to be more competitive for foreign players.There will almost certainly be a push by franchises to have greater say in the running of the league – a common gripe, albeit expressed through varying degrees of frustration. This should be a surprise to nobody, given the PCB’s statist approach to running cricket. As with Mr Tribbiani and his food, so it is that the PCB does not like sharing power or control with any stakeholder.Which is why talk of setting up the PSL as a separate and somewhat independent entity is intriguing and important. It has already been incorporated as a private limited company, wholly owned by the PCB. But that is a first, tiny step. What shape it intends to take is far from certain right now. It could be incorporated abroad (bringing tax benefits). It could go public. Nothing could happen, because it’s not like this separation hasn’t been attempted before. But if it can somehow buffer itself from the instability and politicisation of the PCB that will be the biggest win. If, additionally, any change brings financial advantages, some operational ease, and a separate and long-term strategic vision, then those are significant perks. None of this will be easy, but it will be vital to get much of it right.In light of which is this season’s head-to-head scheduling clash with the IPL. It is in truth a bit of a red herring. The PSL is not competing with the IPL. It can’t. This was a decision they forced upon themselves by the scheduling. A clear space from all the other leagues in that December-March window may yet bring some benefits and they will probably have to do it next season too, given the timing of the T20 World Cup, in February-March. It may be that they find it’s better to move back to their traditional window, right into that leagues crunch.It shouldn’t matter. This next bit of the PSL isn’t about competing with those other leagues. Instead, this bit should be – and apologies in advance for how corny and self-helpy this sounds – the PSL striving to become the best version of itself that it can be. That would be its greatest, most enduring feat.

Vote for the best individual Border-Gavaskar Trophy performance by an Indian in Australia since 2000

Alagappan Muthu12-Nov-2024Update: The fan voting exercise has ended. Rahul Dravid’s Adelaide 2003 performance has been picked as the winner.ESPNcricinfo LtdRahul Dravid celebrates a famous win at Adelaide Oval in 2003•AFP via Getty Images

Rahul Dravid – 233 and 72* in Adelaide, 2003

India win by four wickets, lead series 1-0Long before Rahul Dravid was immortalised for revealing that he too had the ability to yell his head off, he was immortalised for having the ability to yell his head off and also punch the air. The image of him doing so as he hit the winning runs in Adelaide almost 20 years ago is part of Indian cricket history. It was only the fourth time they had ever won a Test match in Australia – and their first victory since 1981 – and they had to come from behind to do it. From way behind, 556 runs to be exact. But Dravid kept whittling away at it, wearing Australia down not once but twice. Finally, after 12 and a half hours at the crease, scoring more runs than he has ever done or will ever do in a single Test, it made perfect sense that he would be there at the end, soaking in the Adelaide sunshine, teeth gritted, arms up high, the personification of triumph.Dravid’s heroics in that match gave India a 1-0 lead, in a series they went on to draw in Australia for the first time since 1985.Round of 16: Dravid’s 233 & 72* beat R Ashwin’s 3-57 & 3-92.Quarter-final: Dravid’s 233 & 72* beat Sachin Tendulkar’s 241* & 60*.Semi-final: Dravid’s 233 & 72* beat Jasprit Bumrah’s 6-33 & 3-53.Watch the highlights of these performances on the Star Sports network at 10am, 1pm, 4pm and 7pm IST, from November 12 onwards.

Rishabh Pant – 89* in Brisbane, 2021

India won by three wickets, and the series 2-1All the things that didn’t make sense on this tour – India all out for 36, their three jillion injuries, the hassle of cricket in quarantine – found meaning when Rishabh Pant began to play the innings of a lifetime. He was 23 and he helped obliterate a record that had stood for way longer than he’d been alive. Australia’s undefeated streak in Brisbane was 32 years old when it was finally laid to rest. “This is one of the biggest things in my life right now,” Pant said after a performance that proved just how dangerous a batter he could be when he adopts even the smallest bit of restraint.Chasing 328 at the Gabba – 324 on the final day – India still needed 161 runs with about 43 overs to go when Pant walked in at No. 5. He got going, and kept going, even as wickets fell and the overs ticked by. Eventually, with only minutes left on the clock, he lashed Josh Hazlewood down the ground to accomplish one of the greatest series wins in Test history.Round of 16: Pant’s 89* beat Ajit Agarkar’s 6-41.Quarter-final: Pant’s 89* beat VVS Laxman’s 167.Semi-final: Pant’s 89* beat Virat Kohli’s 115 & 141.Voting closes at 11am IST on November 17. The winner of this match-up will be decided by the total votes cast on polls conducted across ESPNcricinfo, Star Sports and Disney+ Hotstar platforms.