Major League Soccer was unable to showcase its most prized jewels at its championship game.
Lionel Messi didn’t toy with defenders in the MLS Cup final. He didn’t make any of those passes that no other player could make. He didn’t create any magic.
Messi didn’t do any of that because he wasn’t here. His team, Inter Miami, was eliminated from the postseason four weeks ago.
Standing in for Messi at the league’s flagship event on Saturday were the Galaxy and New York Red Bulls.
Neither team spent as much this season as Inter Miami, which had a league-high $40-million payroll. Neither team had the star power of Inter Miami, especially after Galaxy playmaker Riqui Puig was ruled out of the game with a torn anterior cruciate ligament sustained in the Western Conference final.
What the Galaxy and Red Bulls provided was a more accurate picture of what MLS is today.
Read more: The Galaxy are back after beating the Red Bulls for the franchise’s sixth MLS Cup
The MLS of today is the Galaxy, who reclaimed their title as the kings of the league with a 2-1 victory over the Red Bulls at Dignity Health Sports Park after modernizing their entire operation.
The MLS of today is the Red Bulls, who are uncommonly reliant on American players developed in their own youth academy.
Messi and Inter Miami are part of this ecosystem. They won’t be for long, however. Whenever the 37-year-old Messi retires or moves on, teams such as the Galaxy and Red Bulls will be what remains.
The Galaxy used to be a scaled-down version of what Inter Miami is now, building around world-famous players on the back ends of their careers. The approach became less effective as the level of play in MLS improved, leading them to change how they constructed their roster.
Instead of searching the transfer market for one of Messi’s contemporaries, the Galaxy targeted a couple of youthful wingers in 26-year-old Joseph Paintsil of Ghana and 23-year-old Gabriel Pec of Brazil.
Both players were almost entirely unknown in the United States before this season, but they weren’t brought in to be shiny objects. They were brought in to win games. In the MLS Cup final, Paintsil scored on a ninth-minute through ball from Gaston Brugman and Dejan Joveljic on a 13th-minute solo run from midfield.
Paintsil and Pec…