Is Messi to Inter Miami the biggest signing for US football since Pele? - Andres Cantor discusses

One of the greatest players of all time, Lionel Messi, has agreed to move to MLS and David Beckham's franchise into Miami. He turned down a lucrative offer from Saudi Arabia and Messi decided a return to Barcelona wasn't possible. Our next guest has followed Messi's career closely and his commentary of the winning goal in the World Cup final has been seen more than 25 million times. That is the legendary commentator for Telemundo, Andres Cantor, who joins us live from Miami. Good morning as it is to you in Florida. How long did it take you to calm down after the I'm still on a high to be honest. I mean thank you for reliving that magical moment for all Argentinians and today is a very happy day here in Miami for all football fans or soccer fans as we call it here. So can we expect more commentary like that when Messi scores his first goal for Inter Miami? Well hopefully, obviously he will turn this league around, I have no question. There will be a before and after Messi in MLS. He will sell out all the stadiums wherever he goes to play. This is a major, major coup for Major League Soccer. Having a World Cup winner, I wouldn't say in his prime, but he's not still retired and only six months after winning the World Cup. This is big, big news and I think it's going to change this league for the good. How would you rate this as a moment of significance in US soccer history? I've heard people suggest it's the biggest single signing since Pelé all those years ago. I believe it is because of timing essentially. You know not even six months ago he lifted the World Cup trophy. Everyone knows who Messi is around the world. Everyone watches him play. I am pretty sure that there are a lot of people in England that didn't watch many PSG games and yet when he was on the pitch they enjoyed the game. And now Major League Soccer is going to have an international boost by people who are going to be wanting to watch him more than Inter Miami I guess, but it all comes together. So we will see how the league benefits, but I mean just you know there's something that we live by these days which is social media. The Inter Miami Instagram account grew by about three million followers within the last 24 hours. If that is any reflection of the interest that he will spike by being here, there it is. And he's coming into a city that is full of Latin American influence. Just talk to me about how he's going to fit in there. He's going to fit perfectly. He loves Miami. I believe he owns property here. He has been here many times. He has spent a couple of weeks on vacation here with his family and he said at best he chose Miami and the U.S. because of quality of life. He wants to have you know the best time with his kids right now and he prioritized that over you know the pressure first and foremost. He explained very clearly that he did not want to get caught in Barcelona's misgivings and wait for them to see if they could clear the budget gap to sign him and turn down the millions that Saudi Arabia was offering. So he's going to come to a place where Spanish is spoken more than English believe it or not. Whoever has been to Miami knows that and he's going to fit right in with the Latin American community that is you know what makes this city what it is. Can I assume that if the financial situation had been different he would have gone to Barcelona? I believe that if they if he didn't have to wait for them to clear you know the the salary mass that they have to clear they have to get rid of 200 plus million euros for him to be signed and he didn't want to wait until the last minute and then relive what happened when they couldn't afford him and let him go to the PSG at the last minute. So you know he just wanted to make a decision before this FIFA fixture. Now he's off to China I believe with the Argentinian national team then probably off to vacation knowing where he's going to play next. He didn't want to you know go through what he what happened two years ago. He's joining a team who are bottom of the conference but because of the way the system works there the playoffs are not out of the question. Can he turn their season round? I have no doubt he will. He cannot do it alone. They're saying that they're bringing more players perhaps Luis Suarez to the team and maybe Angel Di Maria on a free transfer. We will see the system is very generous even though they're in last place there are six points behind the last team that qualifies to the playoffs. Yesterday Inter Miami made it to the semi-final of the U.S. Open Cup which is our equivalent to the FA Cup if you will which qualifies the team also to next year's CONCACAF Regional Champions League. So they're two games away from you know from winning that title. August 26th is that semi-final the home or away position will be drawn this afternoon. So that will be suddenly a huge game of the competition that really we all pay attention to but it's not as big as any other domestic league cups. So I have no doubt that you know he will make this team better and he will qualify for the playoffs. If it will be enough for Inter Miami to have him and go for the title we shall see when he arrives because there's no certainty yet when he will make his debut when he will play etc. So let's give it time and then I'll answer that question again when he's here. There's talk that Messi's getting a slice of revenue from Apple who show the games over there and the sportswear sponsors pledge some of its profits to Messi. Is this the future of big money do you think? Well here in the U.S. as much as we have the calendar like we have it and the structure of the tournament also there's their restriction their salary caps. All teams have three designated players that they can pay whatever they want. Obviously Messi is probably the best paid athlete around the world and I am hearing the same thing. I think they're going to clarify whenever he signs the contract the details but yes Apple TV who this week also announced that they are doing a docuseries with him and his family of what happened in Qatar. As a matter of fact I taped an interview for them a lengthy one yesterday. You know they're going to benefit worldwide because they have the worldwide rights for the next 10 years of MLS. So anyone that wants to watch Messi from now on will have to subscribe to Apple TV and apparently from what I'm hearing he's going to have a profit-sharing type of deal of any new subscribers that can come in as soon as he starts playing. Quick word before we go about the Women's World Cup you're going to be the lead commentator at that for Telemundo next month. When you do your goal in the final who's going to be winning the trophy? I think England even though you know you had many injuries in the last couple of months obviously is a heavy favourite and hopefully it will be the dream final. England against the US going for the three-peat and we will get us excited for the FIFA Women's World Cup final as we will as we did for Argentina on December 18th. It will be a thrill to be on site in New Zealand and Australia doing commentary for Telemundo and pick up here in the US. We'll take that Andres. Thank you. Have a good summer. Thanks very much. Thank you.