Mic'd Up: The Apple TV+ analyst hails Messi's competitive spirit, wonders where De Bruyne might end up next
Kevin Egan has been around since the early days. He is, by modern standards, a veteran of the MLS media landscape, having covered the league, in some form since the early 2010s. The current iteration is far different. Lionel Messi is, of course, the headliner, the Argentine and his-now eight Ballons d'Or shifting the landscape when he moved to the States in 2023.
But Egan, who knows what it looks like to watch a veteran phone it in, says the Argentine is as fiery as ever.
"What I enjoy most about it is, is that he's such a competitor within the league," Egan tells GOAL. "A lot of big names have come here in the past, and, well, they've been past it, and it hasn't worked out. And there's been all the talk of the retirement League – 'retirement league' and Messi have not been mentioned once in the same sentence."
But Inter Miami are far more than "just the Messi show." They are a side reshaped under new manager Javier Mascherano, far more balanced than the team that lost to Atlanta United in 2024 MLS Playoffs. They aren't the only contenders, though, in Egan's view.
"I'm a Columbus Crew guy. The star for Columbus is Wilfried Nancy, and I don't think you can say that about any other team in Major League Soccer," he says.
He knows a thing or two about this all. The Irishman leads MLS 360, Apple TV's flagship program covering Major League Soccer. It's chaotic, Egan admits, but he loves it.
"I love the energy you can bring to that show. You welcome people into a show like you'd welcome them into your house for a party," he says. "Like you decide how you're going to open the door, the energy you give, the music, the food you put on, all those things every time you host a party in your house."
Egan talked Messi and Miami, Kevin De Bruyne and Cavan Sullivan in the latest edition of Mic’d Up, a recurring feature in which GOAL US taps into the perspective of broadcasters, analysts, and other pundits on the state of soccer in the U.S. and abroad.
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ON MESSI AND MIAMI
GOAL: I have to start with the biggest team from a fan point of view, and that would be Miami. What have you made of them this year? Under Javier Mascherano, new manager, maybe almost a different system, right?
EGAN: They play the way he played. When you think about it seriously right now, there's a combination of his and Lionel Scaloni's Argentina. I see young players at the back like Noah Allen that are playing in the same way that Mascherano played. Noah Allen's only 5-9, and he's putting out fires everywhere he's reading the game really well. He's tough in the challenge. And I think with Scaloni's Argentina, pieces were put around Messi to help him succeed, and I see that here with Inter Miami like Federico Redond, Benja Cremaschi.
Yannick Bright has been next level for this team. These are guys that are very similar, in a way, to the Leandro Paredes and the Rodrigo de Pauls at Argentina, in what they're doing for this team. So it's really that's been fascinating to see Yannick Bright. I'd keep an eye on that name, because he's a draft pick. I'm going to make a bold prediction here that Yannick Bright – if he keeps going the way he's going with the eyeballs on Inter Miami – not only is he going to have a lot of European clubs after him, but I wouldn't be surprised if he started folks are pushing his way into the conversation around maybe an Italy call up. Because he's been next level of late for me.
And then going forward, this team's a lot of fun to watch. I think Telasco Segovia has been a tremendous pickup, a young Venezuelan attacker who has a huge future ahead of him. His first goal, he said to his friends on the day of his debut, he said, 'I'm going to score tonight. I'm going to be assisted by Messi.' And they're all laughing with him on his Whatsapp group, and then, of course, he goes out and gets the assist for Messi. And it's the most beautiful finish. So, great story, but it's definitely not the Messi show. It's the collective.
GOAL: You say it's not just the Messi show. But you've covered him since pretty much day one. Can you even come close to summarizing his impact on the league?
EGAN: First of all, I think what I enjoy most about it is, is that he's such a competitor within the league. A lot of big names have come here in the past, and, well, they've been past it, and it hasn't worked out. And there's been all the talk of the retirement League – "retirement league" and Messi have not been mentioned once in the same sentence. Because he's come here and he's just brought a fire. Jordi Alba, I mean, he's arguing with the referee each and every game, but I kind of love to see that. It just shows how invested they are. Sergio Busquets plays every single minute, as does Lusi Suarez, who came off in the last game, but they've got a massive clash coming up against LAFC midweek, so I'm not surprised to see him rested. But there's Messi in an MLS game against Toronto, playing 90-plus minutes a few days before they take on LAFC.
And that is a priority, by the way. Winning the CONCACAF Champions Cup has to be considered a massive priority for Inter Miami – and the Club World Cup this summer as well. But it's been special. I covered El Classico for many years on the sidelines of the Camp Nou, and the Santiago Bernabeu to witness the Ronaldo versus Messi clashes, MSN versus BBC. It was just such an epic time. Like all football fans, fans of Messi, to see him here in Major League Soccer, to see him also promoting the games and invested in every single part of it – from the youth academy at the club with his kids playing there – it's just the complete package right now. You couldn't ask for anything more.
GOAL: You pick up on something interesting in terms of "retirement league." I always think of Steven Gerrard at LA Galaxy, who didn't look like he cared, to be honest
EGAN: He had a really interesting quote one time – and he got hammered for it, and I appreciated it, and I hated the people that were hammering him. He said, "Everyone talks about the heat, the cold, the altitude, the travel, But you don't know until you experience it." And that's the case for anything in life. You don't know what it's like to drive a car until you drive a car. You don't know what it's like to jump out of a plane until you do it.
And I think a lot of players struggle with that. The travel is exhausting in Major League Soccer. Look at Messi and what he's doing this this week: going across to LA is a five and a half hour flight from Miami to play a midweek game, to be back playing on Sunday, to be back playing again midweek. It's exhausting. Messi turns 38 years of age in a couple of months, so to go through that, like Gerard commented on – I remember Sean Maloney and I became friends in Chicago when he was playing in Chicago, the former Celtic player, and he said the same thing. He said, "It's exhausting, like, it's not easy."
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ON LUIS SUAREZ
GOAL: I wanted to ask about Luis Suarez. It hurts my knees to watch him run. What do you make of his season? Should he still be doing it?
EGAN: He's talked openly about the process, the injections and what he has to do to complete football matches. But here's the thing, he's playing every single game. Like Allen Obando is a young signing on loan for Barcelona in Ecuador that's come in. And Suarez is just on a different level. I mean, it's not even close. His relationship with Messi, Alba and Busquets means so much. But it's not only that – it's his personality, and it's his drive and his winning mentality. That's the one aspect of these, this quartet from Barcelona that's probably not spoken about enough just watching them and watching their body language on the pitch.
Suarez hasn't scored as many goals as he would have wanted by now. He only has one MLS goal this season, although he scored in the CONCACAF Champions Cup as well. But to many he's probably the MVP at this point. If you were to gauge it, after seven weeks – Miami have only played six games – but Suarez has had the biggest impact on Inter Miami, I would argue, given the assist that he's had in games, given the impact in games overall. He may be on one knee, he may be in his last season, for all I know, but he's producing right now for Javier Mascherano. It's just, how long can he keep it going?
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ON KEVIN DE BRUYNE AND MLS
GOAL: So Kevin De Bruyne and MLS is the hot rumor right now. Miami have his discovery rights, which could mean something. Is he the right guy for Miami, and what would that mean for MLS?
EGAN: We've had debates about this backstage at Apple. We've gone back and forth, a bunch of us, because obviously Kevin De Bruyne, he's in the conversations as the greatest Premier League midfielder ever. Look at what he's accomplished. And he's been Manchester City's best player throughout that golden era. It depends what team he's in, being honest.
The link was San Diego. But they're playing such an explosive counter-attacking style that I don't know if De Bruyne would fit that style right now. He's an unbelievable player, but he is a player that's been struggling of late, like with injuries. I know his talent would be spotted instantly. He'd pick off passes for fun. I think he'd actually suit the Miami team really, really well. I just don't know next year what Miami's plans are with their DPs. And he would need to be a DP. He's not coming here for less.
Maybe this year they could negotiate something where he's on a smaller salary this year, and they could fit in. I don't know how they'd work it, but Miami have been wonderful at figuring out how to make it work with some of the younger players they brought in. And some of the younger players they brought in for small money because they want to play with Messi. And maybe that would be the case with De Bruyne too. Maybe De Bruyne would love to play with those guys, enjoy life in Miami with his family.
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ON HIS EARLY FAVORITE FOR MLS CUP
GOAL: Who's your early favorite to win it all?
EGAN: I would say, yes, Miami. After that, I'm a Columbus Crew guy. The star for Columbus is Wilfried Nancy, and I don't think you can say that about any other team in Major League Soccer. How many times do you look at a team and go, "OK, San Diego, it's Chucky Lozano." Pick another team like Vancouver – it's Ryan Gauld, it's Brian White, it's Andres Cubas. You go through every single team… Emil Forsberg with the Red Bulls, you know, in Atlanta, they've got Miguel Almiron back now, and Emmanuel Latte Lath.
Nancy, is the one you think of straight away when you think of Columbus Crew, and that's because of the unbelievable work he's done. Before he joined Columbus, he brought a Montreal side with such a small budget to become the best road team in MLS history, with 11 wins that year. In 2022, he comes in, wins MLS Cup in his first season in Columbus, wins Leagues Cup the following year. Here he is this year, having lost Christian Ramirez, having lost Aiden Morris, having lost, more importantly, Cucho Hernandez, and here they are unbeaten at the start of the year, and they have a better record at this point than they had the previous two years under Nancy. That speaks to his coaching. He's managed to replace Cucho and Morris with MLS Next Pro graduates, guys like Sean Zawadzki and Jacen Russell Rowe that are producing for him.
I don't think that squad is good enough to win it, but the window's open till April 23 and I know Columbus are actively searching to bring in a high-profile striker and replace Cucho in a suitable way. So if they can do that, they've got the coach to get them there. They've got the versatile players. And I'd urge anybody who's checking this out right now, to watch them play, because they play with a freedom that no other team comes close to. Their center-back, Steven Moreira, MLS Defender of the Year last year. I'm watching the game the other day, and he's playing as a left winger at one point, he's picking the ball up as a 10. He's the one who passes the ball through to Russell Rowe who scores.
It's fascinating to watch, how one guy goes, the next guy slots in, and takes up his position. There's a beautiful nature about the way they play that is all Wilfried Nancy. And if, if a smart club is out there from the Premier League or La Liga, they have to be looking at Wilfried Nancy. This guy's next-level. He deserves attention right now.
GOAL: There don't appear to be many needle-moving coaches in MLS like him.
EGAN: Everything is an opportunity for Wilfried Nancy rather than an obstacle. He doesn't complain about the schedule, he doesn't complain about losing stars. He sees it as an opportunity to coach up somebody else. I've had many chats with him on coaches calls and things like that, where I've come away inspired and feeling like I could run through a brick wall for this guy, genuinely. There's certain coaches that you go on a call with, they're like, "The schedule is a joke. We have to now do this. We have to do that." Do you not think that percolates throughout your entire squad? And do you not think the players then moan about it too? The players feel injustice, and the players are moaning about the referee.
He has a way of reframing the mind and training the brain to see everything as an opportunity, to see everything as a possibility. "Impossible is nothing" he said after MLS Cup. Like, he honestly is an inspiration. He is someone who climbed up through the ranks at Montreal, from being a youth coach to being Thierry Henry's assistant to taking over to now taking over the Columbus Crew. And he'll keep climbing, because he's got a wonderful way about him. He inspires the young players coming through.
He's able to manage the superstars. Last year, he suspended Cucho internally for something. And all of us were like "this is crazy. You're taking out your best player." But Cucho came back better than ever. So, obviously Cucho had tremendous respect for him, and they figured it out behind the scenes. If you want to talk about culture, there's no better man in the league than Wilfried Nancy, and that's going to go far for him, maybe beyond Columbus Crew. For now, I love having him a Major League Soccer.