On Sep 1, 2025 the Seattle Sounders won the Leagues Cup, decisively defeating Club Internacional de Fútbol Miami (aka Inter Miami, nicknamed the Herons). It was something of a David and Goliath game: several years ago Miami signed Lionel Messi, who remains one of the best players in the game; around him they have constructed a roster of very high paid players, mostly teammates from Messi’s Barcelona days. Note that Messi himself earns more than half of the teams in Major League Soccer combined. The second highest paid player on the roster, Sergio Busquets (and a lot more on him later), earns more individually than the entire squad the Seattle Sounders brought to the game, including the bench.
I will note that I don’t consider the competition itself deeply meaningful. For those who may not be following, a handful of years ago the people running MLS (the top soccer league in North America) and Liga MX (the top soccer league in Mexico) decided to create a competition between those two leagues. The resulting Leagues Cup is simultaneously an unimportant money grab …and a really enjoyable soccer event. In my mind the victory cements the Sounders as the most successful MLS club ever; they have won nine trophies in sixteen years, now have one of every remotely meaningful trophy in their case,1 and in 2022 became the only MLS team to have won the Concacaf Champions (League) Cup (CCC) which is a very meaningful trophy.2 (Although the fact that three CCC berths were awarded for this competition, and that the Sounders now have a bye through the group stage of the CCC, immediately make the Leagues Cup more relevant.)
It was a fun game to watch. It was close until late in the second half, and many Sounders players turned in exhilarating personal performances. In my opinion they outplayed Miami all over the field, and in particular the midfield duo of Christian Roldan and Obed Vargas completely shut down Messi.
So I should have walked away from the game feeling like this…
…but the Herons decided to ruin everything.
Obed Vargas is a promising 20-year-old who has appeared with the Mexican National team, and apparently did not treat the high-priced, aging, former Barçalona squad with the respect to which they felt entitled.
After the game, with emotions running high, Luis Suarez decided to have a word with Vargas, forcefully putting a comforting hand behind the younger man’s neck to ensure careful attention. Vargas’ teammate Yeimar Andrade held Suarez back while Vargas extricated himself, both clearly amused by the whole thing.
Suarez appeared quite pleased at how clearly Vargas heard the message.
At this point a group of Sounders put themselves between the players, trying to cool things down; notably one of them was Cody Baker.
Sergio Busquets–a truly gifted and famed player who earns sixty-eight times more in annual salary alone than Vargas–decided to emphasize Suarez’s point by walking up behind Baker and delivering a half-hearted sucker punch over Baker’s shoulder to Vargas’ chin. After a moment’s hesitation, Vargas responded as one does when punched (well, if you’re a soccer player): he threw himself to the ground and rolled around while clutching his head.
[0:00 seconds] And then all hell broke loose. In what follows, a lot of things happen at the same time, so I’ve attempted to add approximate timestamps to help keep things straight. For timing purposes, I’m going to start the clock at this point…
[0:02] Cody Baker is a no-nonsense, hard-nosed bench player for the Sounders. He spun to express contempt for what Busquets had just done.
[0:02] While Baker berates Busquets, Suarez twice attempts to step on Baker’s plant foot. (Watch that foot, we’ll see more from it later.)
If we pull back a bit from that shot, we can see Maximiliano Falcon, Busquet and Messi’s other Barça teammate, rushing towards the confrontation.
[0:03] …at this point Busquets politely asked Mr. Baker to instead give due consideration to establishing a formal complaint with the Go Screw Yourself department.
[0:06-0:16] Notice the comforting hand Busquets wrapped around the back of Baker’s neck… because when Falcon arrived, he decided to ensure Baker not elaborate by trying to choke the younger man out.
Falcon maintained the choke-hold for more than ten seconds before Baker’s teammates and coaches were able to free him. That’s the proximal cause for everything that happens next.
[0:15] While Falcon is throttling Baker, several Sounders coaches enter the fray in a misguided attempt to calm things down (note that the only clear role Miami coaches play in this fracas is applauding from the sidelines). Freddie Suarez is the assistant coach for the Sounders, and (I’m not making this up) Stephen Lenhart–yes, that Stephen Lenhart–is the Sounders “Sports Psychology” something something. Suarez grabs Falcon to try to pull him off Baker…
…and Lenhart appears not to throw a punch at Falcon. No, not a punch; not two punches; but at least three, probably more. (real NYT headline: “Bash Brother revisited: How Steven Lenhart transformed from MLS supervillain to Zenned-out healer.” Hm.) There is a lot–a lot–of pushing and shoving throughout this among the dozen players in the scrum. Mostly the Sounders are trying to extricate Cody Baker, who is literally gasping for breath throughout; the Miami players are…
[0:17] Putting Sounders Assistant Coach Freddie Suarez into a pretty ferocious headlock.
[0:23] Lenhart is pushed around a bit in the scrum, but backs to the outer edge, after which he and Suarez get into a bit of a shirt-pulling contest. Something weird happens here, I’ve watched it repeatedly and I can’t quite figure out what Suarez does, but my best guess is that he steps on Lenhart’s foot as well.
[0:25] the Sounders display the calm maturity of a seasoned, experience team when noted peacemaker Kalani Kossa-Rienzi (23 years old, signed from the Tacoma Defiance of MLS Next Pro six months ago) successfully pulls Lenhart out of the fray.
Well, that was a lot. Good thing… Oh, wait a minute. We’re far from done.
[0:12] Let’s roll back a bit on the highlight reel, shall we? Because while all that was going on, Jackson Ragen was at the back of the scrum, trying to hold Busquets away from the in-progress Falcon-Baker-strangulation (perhaps in a doomed effort to prevent Busquets from putting any coaches in headlocks). Miami defender Marcelo Weingadt appeared to disagree strongly with Ragen’s “no-headlock” policy, and expressed his position by grabbing Ragen him from behind and, naturally, putting him in a headlock.
[0:31] Tomás Avilés from Miami then chased down Ragen to recommend Ragen reconsider his position on headlocks, specifically by suggesting the superiority of outright fisticuffs by punching (slapping? swinging, anyway) Ragen in the head.
[0:33] Tomás had apparently forgotten about Sounders substitute defender Jonathan Bell. Jonathan was an overlooked contender up to this point, but immediately became the uncontested Judo competition winner by hurling Avilés to the pitch like a large sack of wet noodles. At that point several Sounders players, including goalkeeper Stefan Frei, grab and control the Miami players at the little outer squall melted away.
Phew! Now we’re done, right? Well, no. That was a fine second course. But it’s time to chow down! Now we come to the main event, the part of this whole thing that has gotten the most attention. But really this was just the perfect finishing touch to a truly reprehensible display of poor sportsmanship; it was the sour cherry foam, if you will, on a Floridian compost cocktail.
[0:27] Remember when the most mature player on the field, the Sounders 23-year old Kalani Kossa-Rienzi, pulled Lenhart out of the scrum? Well, at that point Suarez followed them over towards the ref, pointing at Lenhart. He presumably was lodging a somewhat justified if one-sided formal complaint about being pummeled by the Sounders Head-Coach-of-Being-Totally-Zen. Yay! We got the ref involved, that should calm things down, right?
[0:29] Well, if Suarez is talking to the ref, Lenhart has to set the record straight, right? Lenhart stepped back over and squared up with Suarez; Sounders head of security Gene Ramirez was trailing Lenhart and attempted to step between the pair. (Hi, Gene! We’ll see a lot of you over the next few seconds, ok? Try to avoid getting bitten.)
At this point the ref did admonish Lenhart. Don’t hit people, Steven, ok?
[0:31] Suarez does not appear to agree that’s enough, and forcibly pushes Lenhart from behind. But Lenhart appears to have regained his senses and just continues to walk away. Sadly, Ramirez decided that this is a good time to elaborate on Lenhart’s position, and has a few words to share with the ref and Suarez.
[0:33] Suarez pivots his attention to Gene, appearing to disagree with Gene’s position and stepping close to admonish him. (The referee’s reaction here is kinda priceless. He’s trying to de-escalate, he begs Gene to just stop, and when Ramirez keeps at it, the ref literally throws up his hands in disgust and, although I’m not a lip-reader, quite clearly says “I give up” and turns away.) Be careful what you wish for, Gene…
Another view of this confrontation. Note the placement of Suarez’s foot: once again, he’s standing forcefully on the arch of his adversary’s foot. With cleats. On Gene’s sneakers.
Gene Ramirez is 77 years old.
After all of that – all the thrown punches, multiple attempts to injure, countless foot maulings, accusations that it’s all the Sounders’ fault, this is the moment that Suarez crosses a line that cannot be ignored: while standing on Gene’s foot, lecturing at him aggressively, Suarez spits in Gene’s face.
Notice the odd body position in that last frame. As Gene recoils from the assault, his foot is still trapped under Suarez’s, making him twist his ankle. He’s probably feeling that for days, and might be lucky to have avoided real injury.
So, just… wow.
I have limited myself to describing the shenanigans after the game finished, but just to forestall the predictable “Vargas [or Baker] Must Have Done Something to Deserve It” (the Barça Boys must be held blameless, right?) there are credible reports that Messi himself said some pretty contemptible things to players on the field, including threats to blackball Pedro de la Vega, the Sounders promising young Argentinian designated player (something to the tune of “you’ll never play for the National Team, I called and made sure of it”). Anyone who has played competitive sports knows that people will run their mouths to try to knock players off their game, but one of the hallmarks of real competitors is that it stops the moment the game does. There is nothing any of the Sounders could have done that would justify the Miami team’s reaction–well, I suppose, other than having soundly beaten them and taken the trophy that the entitled boys in pink really, really wanted.
No, no, it’s too much. I will summarize: every league needs a team of villains, and Inter Miami Club de Futbol is filling the role admirably.
Footnotes
- Specifically everyone agrees that the “MLS is Back” Tournament is meaningless and anyone who won it should be ashamed to pretend it is a meaningful trophy, but as annoying as Portland fans are, they really deserve a better ownership group. ↩︎
- Like the UEFA Champion’s league in Europe, Concacaf (Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football) conducts an annual competition between the “champions” of all the leagues in the region. Up until this year it was known as the CCL (Concacaf Champion’s League) but this year has been rechristened the CCC (Concacaf Champion’s Cup). Like Europe, the top leagues get more than one berth. ↩︎
