The 2025 MLS Cup final is a moment that some Inter Miami supporters never thought would come. From the dark days of COVID-19, hosting Vancouver Whitecaps on Saturday, with a chance at MLS Cup, is bewildering.
Javon Haughton remembers the day before things changed.
An Inter Miami supporter from the club’s launch in 2018 and a prominent figure in the the supporters’ group Black Herons United, Haughton looked around the tailgate in 2023, with wafts of Jamaican patties and other delicacies filtering through the air, and looked over at his friends.
— Black Herons United (@blackheronsutd) March 24, 2025
“This is the last game of us just being terrible, bro,” he told them. “Everything’s different after this time. It’s definitely been a ride.”
It was the final match before Inter Miami officially introduced Lionel Messi, the then seven-time Ballon d’Or winner, who joined the Herons in one of the most complex and lucrative deals in MLS history.
Miami drew 2–2 with the Columbus Crew that day, before losing their next two games on the road, ahead of Messi’s debut in Leagues Cup, where he scored a stunning stoppage-time free kick to defeat Liga MX side Cruz Azul.
“It still feels like a whirlwind, it still doesn’t even make sense, because it’s almost like divine faith,” Haughton told Sports Illustrated. “When Messi scored the free kick against Cruz Azul, it was known that we’re standing right here witnessing a literal part of lineage that’s going to be spoken about in this great player’s career.
“Whenever you talk about Lionel Messi, you’re going to talk about Inter Miami, and the supporters, we were immortalized in that moment.”
From Losers to League Titans
When Messi arrived, Miami sat at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, and even his spellbinding form couldn’t lift them to an MLS Cup playoff spot that season.
Haughton attended the club’s first game in 2020 against LAFC. After that match, MLS halted play due to COVID-19 and resumed in the summer with a bubble tournament at Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
Those early days saw the team embroiled in a legal dispute over Blaise Matuidi’s contract status, to the point that the 2018 World Cup champion even ended up playing for the second team. Other star players included Gonzalo Higuaín, his brother Federico and former U.S. men’s national team winger, Brek Shea.
“I remember one game against the New England Revolution [in 2021], and it was 4–0 before halftime. It was like bro, I’m here and saying 'f--- this, it’s not good,” Haughton recalled. “I knew they were professionals, and you all go there, and you do your best, but I remember watching and thinking this is not even a viable product right now.”
Messi’s Arrival Changes Everything in Florida
During those dark days, being a supporter of Inter Miami wasn’t cool. They were the team that played in Fort Lauderdale and struggled to grasp any attention.
When Messi debuted, he flipped a switch.
Inter Miami quickly became North America’s most recognizable club, with success following in the 2023 Leagues Cup, paving the way to Saturday’s MLS Cup.
“It’s just a great feeling. It’s very vindicating of the time and the effort we put in before it was the cool thing to do,” Haughton said of the blossoming supporters group.
“Everybody is welcome on the wagon at some point. Some are early adapters, some take a while to see, and some gotta see everybody else do it before they join, so we understand. But getting a win this Saturday is going to be the ultimate vindication.”
Priding themselves as day zero supporters and brimming with excitement for the 2026 opening of the club’s permanent stadium, Miami Freedom Park, Haughton will head to Chase Stadium for the last time on Saturday.
It’s there, alongside the others in Black Herons United and the entirety of La Familia—the name given to the entire Inter Miami supporters’ section—that he will hope to see everything pay off, and celebrate an MLS Cup title.
“Our group is for the Carribeans, the Black Americans and that side where there’s a love for the game here in America,” Haughton said of Black Herons United. “It’s the community that we’ve built that has kept me here, and knowing, if it’s a game this weekend, these are the people I’m gonna get to see that have been seen for years. It’s like a family.”
“Of all the teams, I didn’t want the Whitecaps. They are a phenomenal team, deep and playing well, and they’re fearless, but at the end of the day, we have Messi, and when he turns up and does what he does, it is what it is.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as How Lionel Messi's Arrival Kickstarted Inter Miami’s MLS Cup Charge.
