Casemiro Joins Forces With Messi at Inter Miami: “One of the Gods of Football”

For most of his career, Casemiro’s relationship with Lionel Messi was built on opposition. Real Madrid against Barcelona in El Clasico. Brazil against Argentina in the Copa America and World Cup qualifying. Two of the sport’s most decorated winners, standing on opposite sides of the biggest rivalries in the game. That changed this month, and Casemiro says it still has not fully sunk in.

“I’ve had two days around him now, and it’s incredible,” Casemiro said at his formal unveiling with Inter Miami CF on Thursday. “Having played against Leo before, I already knew he was impossible to stop, but these two days have given me a lot of motivation to keep growing, to keep winning. Honestly, I’m enjoying this, and I’m glad I’m on his side of things now. I want to keep enjoying this moment.”

Casemiro called Messi “one of the gods, if not the god of football,” a description that lands differently coming from a player who spent a decade winning trophies at the highest level of European football himself.

From Rival to Teammate

Casemiro formally signed with Inter Miami on July 22 as a free agent after his exit from Manchester United, closing out a career chapter that included five Champions League titles with Real Madrid and spells at the top of both the Premier League and LaLiga. He made his debut for the reigning MLS Cup champions without Messi on the field, going the full 90 minutes in a 1-0 win at CF Montreal, with the Argentine still resting after his run to the FIFA World Cup final.

Messi’s absence from that debut made the timing of this week’s reunion, training alongside each other for the first time as teammates, feel more significant. Messi tallied eight goals and four assists in eight games as Argentina reached the World Cup final, a tournament run that Casemiro, watching as both a rival nation’s player and now a future club teammate, described as extraordinary.

“A lot of people think MLS is a league that still has a long way to grow, but you have to remember the best player of the last World Cup plays in this league,” Casemiro said. “Leo was the best player of the World Cup, and he’s in MLS. So all I want to do is enjoy this, give everything to feel comfortable on the field, because for me he’s the best player in the world, and he’s arrived at this moment in his career.”

The comparison Casemiro is making runs both ways. He arrives in Miami as a five-time Champions League winner from his years at Real Madrid, a two-time World Cup participant with Brazil, and a player who spent his most recent seasons in the Premier League with Manchester United before choosing MLS as his next step. Very few midfielders anywhere in the world can claim a trophy haul that deep, and almost none of them have chosen to build the next chapter of their career in the United States rather than staying inside Europe’s traditional power leagues.

A Decision Years in the Making

Casemiro described his move to Inter Miami as unlike any transfer he had made before, calling it the first time in his career he chose his own next step rather than following the pull of a bigger contract or a bigger trophy.

“It was a very important decision, especially because it was the first time in my career that I had the freedom to choose where I wanted to be,” Casemiro said. “I have always had a very special affection for the city, so MLS was a place where I would like to play one day. I am where I want to be. Without a doubt, I am very happy, also because of the effort they made to bring me here.”

That sense of a project chosen rather than inherited echoes the words of Inter Miami managing owner Jorge Mas, who described the signing as consistent with the club’s identity going back to Messi’s own arrival three years ago.

“The signing of Casemiro, I think, captures the personality and DNA of Inter Miami,” Mas said. “As everyone knows, we’re a club that aspires to dream big, to be a reference club not just in this league, but globally. We’ve tried, in our short history, to bring in world-class talent with a human profile, players who are part of this family project, because what I’ve always wanted Inter Miami to be, above all, is a family.”

Joining a Squad Built for Trophies

Casemiro is not the only established name waiting for Messi in South Beach. The Herons also carry Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez and Argentina international Rodrigo De Paul, both of whom shared the World Cup final run with Messi before returning to MLS duty, while defender Sergio Reguilon brings his own Premier League and LaLiga experience to the squad. In midfield, Casemiro is taking on something close to the role vacated by Sergio Busquets, the Spanish World Cup winner who retired after helping Inter Miami win the MLS Cup in 2025.

With Messi back in training, the pair could appear together for the first time competitively as soon as Saturday’s home match against Columbus Crew. Inter Miami sit two points behind Nashville SC in the race for the Supporters’ Shield with roughly a third of the regular season still to play, and the club’s Leagues Cup campaign begins on August 5 against Liga MX side Atletico de San Luis, the same competition Miami won in 2023, the summer Messi first arrived in the league.

That 2023 Leagues Cup triumph is part of what built the version of Inter Miami Casemiro is now walking into. Messi’s arrival that summer turned a club that had never won a trophy into one chasing silverware on every front within two years, a run that included the 2025 MLS Cup with Busquets marshalling midfield alongside Messi, Suarez and De Paul. Casemiro’s job now is to take the same central role Busquets held, protecting a back line while feeding a front line built around some of the most decorated attacking players of their generation.

A Statement Beyond South Beach

Casemiro’s own view of the move sums it up: MLS is a league still being underestimated, and it houses the best player of the last World Cup at the same time. That view echoes a wider argument Inter Miami’s ownership has made from the moment Messi first signed. Every marquee arrival after that, from Suarez and De Paul to Busquets and now Casemiro, has doubled as an attempt to change how the rest of the football world talks about the league. A five-time Champions League winner walking away from a Premier League contract to join them gives that argument a data point it did not have before.

It also raises the bar for what Inter Miami are expected to deliver. A roster with this much decorated experience is not judged only on regular season points. The Supporters’ Shield race with Nashville, the Leagues Cup defense that begins in August, and any run into the MLS Cup playoffs will all be measured against a squad that, on paper, has few peers anywhere in the league.

What Comes Next

For Casemiro, the appeal was never just about lining up alongside the player he once tried to stop on the pitch. It is a chance to compete for trophies on multiple fronts in a league he says he always wanted to join, inside a dressing room built around some of the same players he faced at World Cups and Copa America finals for years.

There is also a simpler story running underneath the trophies and the transfer fees. Two players who spent a decade competing against each other at the top of world football, in league titles, in Champions League knockout ties, in Copa America and World Cup qualifying, now share a locker room and a training pitch. Casemiro’s description of watching Messi up close for the first time as a colleague rather than an opponent, saying the two days had given him fresh motivation to keep winning, points to something in that dressing room that goes beyond tactics or contracts. Even a player with five Champions League medals of his own still sounds like he is adjusting to what it means to line up alongside Messi rather than against him.

His full debut alongside Messi will answer the question everyone at Inter Miami is asking: what does the club’s midfield look like with a five-time Champions League winner protecting a back line in front of the best player of the last World Cup. Casemiro, for his part, sounds like a man who has already decided the answer will be worth the wait.

The contract Casemiro signed with Inter Miami runs through the summer of 2027, with a club option that could extend it to June 2029. He arrives having collected 21 trophies across his club career, including five Champions League titles and three LaLiga crowns won at Real Madrid, along with 73 goals and 61 assists in 663 appearances. The move comes almost directly off the back of Brazil’s run at the 2026 World Cup, leaving barely a gap between international duty and his first Inter Miami training session.

“I’m glad I’m on his side of things now,” he said. That much, at least, is no longer up for debate. The rest of the answer arrives one matchday at a time, starting as soon as this weekend.

WRITTEN BY

Jarrod

Jarrod Partridge is the Founder of Futbol Chronicle and an accredited journalist with over 30 years of experience following international football. A member of the AIPS International Sports Press Association, Jarrod has covered matches at stadiums around the world, bringing first-hand insight to every match report, player profile, and tactical analysis he writes.

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