Last weekend saw Lionel Messi play his first game in Major League Soccer.

Nine games into his U.S. soccer adventure, having played matches in the Leagues Cup, a tournament which Miami won, and in the U.S. Open Cup, where Miami reached the final, at last, he played a game in the league that worked so hard and so creatively to sign him up.

In Matchday 28 of MLS, his Inter Miami side travelled to New Jersey to face the New York Red Bulls at Red Bull Arena.

The game was notable not just for it being Messi’s MLS debut, but also for the widespread support of Messi himself in the stadium despite it being an away game for Inter Miami.

Local reporter Michael Battista also spotted Messi shirts being sold in the New York Red Bulls club shop before the game.

An official team store selling merchandise in support of the opposing team would be unthinkable for the majority of teams in world soccer.

These were not merely half-and-half scarves or head-to-head style pre-match hype, but straight-up Messi merch.

As MLS is a single-entity league, the product is MLS as much as it is the individual teams themselves.

When asked after the game about the record crowd of 26,276 at Red Bull Arena, Red Bulls captain Sean Nealis said:

“MLS has done a great job in growing the league, getting Messi over here and these other big-time players.

“I think the league can continue to grow and I think we should keep coming and supporting the league.”

Note he says “supporting the league” and not the club.

On top of all this, Messi is an Adidas athlete and all MLS gear and teamwear is made by Adidas.

These things explain why Messi merchandise may be found at clubs across the league, but they don’t make it right.

New York Red Bulls do have a section of hardcore support and a loyal following and it would be unfair not to consider them in all of this.

Many of these fans will have been annoyed with how the club came across during the match against Inter Miami, but given the way the club has operated recently they might not have been surprised.

And how many of those season ticket holders can afford not to sell their tickets for The Messi Game? The fee they would get on the secondary market would likely pay for next year’s season ticket and then some.

Among a number of issues at the club this season, the Red Bulls are in the midst of an identity crisis.

On the field, too, the club appears to have lost some of its identity. We know it is a pressing team in the Red Bull style, but a lot of the time it appears to do this aimlessly just to tick a box.

Even its part of the overall system of Red Bull clubs for developing players seems to have been neglected.

The club has seen some improvement under its latest head coach Troy Lesesne, who took over from Gerhard Struber earlier in the season.

Results improved somewhat, and the loss to Miami was the sixth in Lesesne’s 14 games in charge, winning six and drawing two.

This record still isn’t at the levels required for a club that has qualified for the playoffs every year since 2010, but Lesesne has at least improved the atmosphere around the club. There is a more positive environment compared to the awkwardness that existed prior to him stepping into the head coach role.

But Red Bulls fans do not want to see their team merely improving in order to get to those previous levels of qualifying for the playoffs.

They wanted to see their team improve from one that merely qualified for the playoffs to one that challenged for the MLS Cup—a trophy it has never won.

The team reached an MLS Cup final in 2008 and won the Supporters’ Shield for topping the overall regular season league standings in 2013, 2015, and 2018.

It is this from this base they wanted to build, rather than being reset to a club that is just happy to make the playoffs.

It is a cultural thing, too. Messi’s presence demonstrated how little the club connects to its existing fans and surrounding area.

When Red Bull Arena is full, it is usually due to external factors rather than the Red Bulls themselves.

Spectators will turn up in numbers for special occasions such as the Hudson River derby against local rivals New York City FC, or for the presence of Messi, but not necessarily for the New York Red Bulls.

This is frustrating for those fans who do turn up week-in, week-out, who might feel their club is not doing enough to make their team the primary attraction.

Clubs such as FC Cincinnati, Nashville SC, and Philadelphia Union have all seen Messi mania arrive at their stadiums in recent weeks, and though there was obvious excitement and keen anticipation of Messi’s appearance on these occasions, this was mixed with partisan support for the home team.

Messi was even booed at some of these games, including the U.S. Open Cup game in Cincinnati. Not out of disrespect but because fans simply wanted their own team to win. They knew a good way to do that might be to upset the opposing team’s best player—in this case, Messi.

Their own players were cheered to the rafters, and whenever a Messi chant broke out from sections of the stadium, they were drowned out by boos or a chant in support of the home team.

Messi’s presence in various MLS stadiums across the county will give a good indication of how each of those clubs connects to its own fanbase, and how much of those stadiums are season ticket holders and hardcore support of the home team, rather than just Messi admirers.

There is nothing wrong with being a Messi admirer, but in a competitive environment, you would expect support for the home team alongside that respect.

Maybe it was more natural for supporters to get behind their own team in the knockout format of the Leagues Cup and the Open Cup compared to the relatively uncompetitive MLS regular season.

Opposition fans applauding opposing players has happened in games elsewhere, famously for Ronaldinho at Real Madrid’s Bernabéu stadium while playing for Barcelona, but it is earned in the moment, it is spontaneous, and those Real Madrid fans were hardly turning up in Ronaldinho shirts.

It might be expected for Messi to receive respect in this manner after the game or after a moment, but you would also expect a team, fans, and club, to back themselves first.

Red Bulls are far from the only club that will have such issues when Messi arrives at their home stadium. Still, so far they are the easiest one to make an example of due to the Messi fans in their stadium so obviously outnumbering fans of the home team and the high-profile coverage of Messi shirts being sold in the official club shop.

The Messi American soccer roadshow is there to be enjoyed and savoured, but for opposing teams and fans that should mean relishing the challenge and getting behind their team.

How MLS clubs have connected with their fans in recent years will be tested. Red Bulls failed the test and failed its fans.

There is a balance to be had between respecting Messi and supporting the home team, and it will be interesting to see which way the scales fall at arenas across America in the coming years.