Inter Miami sign Lionel Messi’s former Barcelona and Argentina coach Gerardo Martino

One of Inter Miami’s first steps in the Lionel Messi era will be a reunion.

Three weeks after Inter Miami pulled off Major League Soccer’s coup of the decade by signing the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner, it announced on Wednesday that Gerardo Martino, Messi’s former manager at FC Barcelona and Argentina national team, committed.

Martino was Barcelona manager from 2013-14, a period during which the club won the Spanish Super Cup 40-11-8 before resigning to take up the post in Argentina. As leaders of their home country’s national team, Martino and Messi reached the final of the Copa America twice but lost to Chile on both occasions. Martino resigned in 2016.

The player and manager met on Tuesday night at the stadium of Newell’s Old Boys, an Argentine club they both played for and which Martino is in charge of.

This will not be Martino’s entry into MLS as he was Atlanta United’s first manager in 2017. He led the club to the 2018 MLS Cup before retiring later that year, eventually ending up with the Mexico national team.

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With Inter Miami, Martino will once again have one of the greatest players in football history… and not much else.

The five-year-old club is currently bottom of the East table with a record of 5-0-13. Even in the week that they signed Messi, they sacked their former manager Phil Neville and lost their sixth league game in a row. Her most notable news since was that her backup goalkeeper was hospitalized with a spider bite from a zoo.

Messi’s signing has attracted unprecedented attention and more changes could be on the way, but there are plenty of reasons to keep expectations in check as the superstar takes the field.