The Colorado Avalanche will be without leading goal scorer Ross Colton, who is set to miss the next six to eight weeks after breaking his foot, coach Jared Bednar told reporters Wednesday.

Colton, whose eight goals are also tied for third in the NHL, was placed on injured reserve earlier in the day with Bednar later confirming that the club would be without one of its strongest contributors through the first 10 games of the season.

Bednar told reporters that the Avs would also be without forward Miles Wood for at least a week as he recovers from an upper-body injury.

Colton sustained the injury Monday in the second period of the Avs' 5-2 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks.

Losing Colton is the latest development in what has been an inconsistent start for the 2022 Stanley Cup champions. The Avs opened the regular season with four straight losses in which they allowed more than five goals in those defeats.

The Avalanche then won five straight while averaging more than four goals per game before losing to the Blackhawks. The Avs (5-5) entered Wednesday a point behind the Calgary Flames and the Seattle Kraken in the wild-card race.

While the Avalanche still have stars such as Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, and Mikko Rantanen, the loss of Colton means they will be missing another player who has been crucial to their plans of generating secondary and tertiary goals.

The Avs were already missing forwards Jonathan Drouin and Artturi Lehkonen before Colton's injury. Drouin has only played once this season as he recovers from an upper-body injury, while Lehkonen, who has resumed skating, is yet to play this season. He has been dealing with shoulder injury, with Bednar telling reporters that the team should know more about his situation later in the day.

In addition to Colton, Drouin, Lehkonen and Wood, the team is also still without captain Gabriel Landeskog and Valeri Nichushkin. Landeskog, who has not played since 2022, continues to recover from knee surgery while Nichushkin remains under suspension as part of being placed in Stage 3 of the NHL/NHL Players' Association player assistance program.

EIGHT MONTHS AGO, late in the evening on Feb. 29, a nine-second sequence played out in what could have been considered a glimpse into the future of the center position in the NBA.

The Oklahoma City Thunder were in town to face the San Antonio Spurs, a marquee matchup between the rookie big men: two of the game's brightest young stars, Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren.

With 3:29 left in the fourth quarter and the Spurs up six, the 7-foot-4 Frenchman swooped in to contest a layup at the rim, ripped down the rebound, tossed an outlet pass to point guard Tre Jones and trotted 12 strides up the Frost Bank Center floor before getting the ball back.

His size 20 right foot standing on the black paint of the Spurs' midcourt logo, the big man didn't hesitate. He launched a rainbow, 28-foot trey.

Swish.

It was a revelation as much as a vision for 5s across the league. Except for one detail: The Spurs didn't even officially consider him a center, listing him as a forward even after scrapping the idea of starting the 6-foot-11 Zach Collins alongside him.

"He's not really a 5," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said earlier in the season, referring to Wembanyama's skill set, which stretches far beyond the prototypical center's. "He's the one big guy out there."

Wembanyama and Holmgren are multifaceted, extreme examples of a modern big-man archetype: 7-footers who protect the rim on defense and can space the floor as 3-point threats offensively. They impact the most valuable real estate in basketball -- the paint -- on both ends of the floor, clogging that territory as elite shot blockers and opening driving and cutting lanes for teammates simply by standing 25-plus feet from the hoop.

These two face off again on Wednesday as the Thunder host the Spurs (9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).

"If you can play defense and shoot the ball, you can pretty much play on any court anywhere," Holmgren told ESPN. "Those are two things that are always needed on the basketball court, and that's kind of where the foundation of my game started."

WEMBANYAMA AND HOLMGREN are the extreme extension of the big-man evolution, but a different big man serves as its foundation.

Brook Lopez didn't look like a trendsetter during his first eight seasons in the NBA. He was in the process of becoming the Brooklyn Nets' all-time leading scorer, but he had an old-school offensive game. He did most of his damage as a back-to-the-basket scorer, as you'd expect from a 7-foot-1, 282-pound lottery pick, although he had a soft enough touch to be an effective midrange option on pick-and-pops.

Lopez's game changed drastically in 2016-17, his ninth season in the league and last in Brooklyn. The Nets had hired Kenny Atkinson as their new head coach, and he insisted on Lopez shooting from 3-point range.

It might have seemed like an odd request of a center who had gone 3-of-24 from beyond the arc in his career to that point, but Atkinson intended to implement the five-out offensive scheme the Atlanta Hawks had successfully utilized while he was an assistant on Mike Budenholzer's coaching staff. Al Horford had made a similar shift in his shot diet the previous season for the Hawks.

"[Atkinson] gave me great confidence to just keep shooting it in-game and work up that trust," Lopez told ESPN. "And from there, obviously it just kept snowballing and ballooning over time."

Lopez launched 387 3s that season, making a respectable 34.6% of them. He continued firing away after the rebuilding Nets traded Lopez to the Los Angeles Lakers. The league as a whole wasn't quite sure what to make of Lopez's midcareer transformation, allowing the Milwaukee Bucks to sign him to a one-year bargain deal for the league's biannual exception.

Milwaukee had just hired Budenholzer, who figured Lopez could be an ideal fit in the five-out system alongside blossoming superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo. "Splash Mountain," the nickname bestowed on the Disney-loving Lopez, was a smashing success in Milwaukee. The Bucks made a 16-win improvement to leap to 60 wins and the top seed in the Eastern Conference.

Some 340 miles away, in Minneapolis, a 16-year-old Holmgren was developing his own game. And across the Atlantic, in the outskirts of Paris, a 14-year-old Wembanyama was doing the same.

Lopez launched 512 3s in that 2018-19 season, the most ever by a 7-footer, making 187 (36.5%). Lopez often spent offensive possessions stationed several feet above the 3-point line, pulling the opposing big man far from the paint or forcing the other team's coach to make difficult matchup decisions. Lopez learned to embrace impacting games even when he didn't touch the ball for several possessions in a row.

Lopez also served as a dominant anchor of the league's top-rated defense. The Bucks typically played "drop" coverage in pick-and-rolls, keeping Lopez around the rim as much as possible. He swatted 179 shots -- still the only season in NBA history that a player had at least 175 made 3s and 175 blocked shots.

"They're contrasting ways of changing the game, right?" Lopez said. "When you're clogging the paint, you're almost in every single play. You're always right there. Everyone can see you right by the basket. You're hitting someone, always a part of something, but on the opposite end, it's interesting to just stand there and watch.

"You just got to keep that trust. For me, that was probably one of the things at the beginning where it was like, 'Whoa, I'm just supposed to keep standing here.' But it kept working."

Lopez has been a critical component of the Bucks' success since then, signing a pair of long-term deals to stay in Milwaukee and helping to bring Brew City its first NBA championship in 50 years. Half of his field goal attempts in a Bucks uniform have come from beyond the arc.

Lopez was an anomaly early in his Milwaukee tenure. He has plenty of company now. Of the 12 players who blocked at least 100 shots last season, half of them also made at least 100 3s: Wembanyama, Holmgren, Lopez, Boston's Kristaps Porzingis, Indiana's Myles Turner and Memphis' Jaren Jackson Jr., the lone power forward on the list.

A decade ago, such production from centers felt like a foreign idea. Now, when scouting big men, teams attempt to project whether 7-footers can develop into capable "stretch 5s." That applies even to a premier lob finisher such as Dallas Mavericks sophomore Dereck Lively II or a post-up bully such as Memphis Grizzlies rookie Zach Edey, both of whom incorporate 3-point shooting into their daily post-practice routines.

"You'll always have a job. That's a big thing," Turner told ESPN, referring to rim protectors who possess 3-point range. He made a career-high 116 3s last season while blocking 144 shots, his seventh straight 100-block season, for the East finalist Pacers.

"I think that as you go more and more in your career or later in your career, when you lose a little bit of your athletic ability, you still have the ability to shoot the ball and flick the wrist. I think that more than anything, bigs coming in and watching, seeing guys like myself, seeing the Brook Lopezes, it's just good coming to the league knowing that it's possible."

THE FLOOR-SPACING, shot-swatting center archetype is reaching new heights because Wembanyama and Holmgren are so uniquely skilled for their size.

Start on the defensive end, where they immediately established themselves as dominant forces.

"The first impression I had of him that really jumped out, I'd probably take it for granted now, is his closing speed on balls," Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said of Holmgren. "There's plays that you don't think he can get to, and then it's like he's a praying mantis. He is just on top of the ball out of nowhere."

Holmgren, who defends well enough in space to allow Daigneault to employ a wide variety of coverage schemes, blocked 190 shots last season. That ranked a distant second in the league behind Wembanyama, who had 254 blocks, the most by any player in eight seasons.

But it's their diverse offensive potential that really separates Holmgren and Wembanyama from other shot-blocking centers, even those such as Lopez and Turner, who are comfortable shooting from long range.

"Man, they're freaks of nature," Turner said. "They're very, very talented. I look at someone like Wemby, he's just a tall guard. It's bigs that want to be guards, you know what I mean?"

These are the rare big men equipped with deep "bags." Nobody in NBA history ever had at least 100 made 3s, 150 blocks and 200 assists in a season until Holmgren and Wembanyama both did so as rookies. They were also the only players in the league with at least 125 dunks and 3s.

"It's cool to see honestly, because there's just so much they can do already and they're just getting started in their careers," Lopez said. "There's not really anything they can't do. They handle the ball so well. They move great. To see already what they're doing is pretty special. So just to think about all the potential they have, it's exciting to see centers who are capable of doing all those things."

There were questions about whether Holmgren and Wembanyama could -- or should -- play center as they entered the league, because of their versatile skill sets and skinny frames. While Wembanyama opened his career at power forward, Holmgren played solely center as a rookie for an Oklahoma City team that became the youngest No. 1 seed in NBA history.

The Thunder experimented with lineups featuring 7-foot, 190-pounder Aleksej Pokusevski at center during the 2022-23 season, when Holmgren sat out with a foot injury, in preparation for their prized lottery pick's delayed rookie year. Oklahoma City determined that the offensive benefits of having Holmgren play center outweighed the rebounding challenges.

"It's all about putting other teams in a dilemma where if they want to take something away, they're giving up something else," Holmgren said late last season, when he averaged 16.5 points while shooting 53% from the floor and 37% from 3-point range. "If you're too one-dimensional, then they can just take that away and say, 'Beat us doing something else,' and there's nothing else that's effective with it. ... So just kind of figuring out how to counter whatever, whatever's thrown at you."

Oklahoma City made a significant investment in a bulkier 7-footer this summer, signing Isaiah Hartenstein to a three-year, $87 million deal. Holmgren's perimeter skills make playing the two big men together a plausible option, although the discovery process on how the rotation will work with the 7-foot tandem is on hold while Hartenstein recovers from a broken left hand that will sideline him for at least the first month of the season.

In the meantime, Holmgren more than held his own against three-time MVP Nikola Jokic in the Thunder's season-opening win. He had 25 points, 14 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 blocks in the victory (despite missing all five of his 3-point attempts). He has averaged 23.7 points, 13.0 rebounds, 3.0 assists and a league-leading 4.0 blocks during the Thunder's 3-0 start.

Wembanyama, who doesn't have the luxury of playing with a superstar guard such as Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, averaged 21.4 points as a rookie but wasn't nearly as efficient as Holmgren. Wembanyama shot only 46.5% from the floor and 32.5% from 3-point range while committing the third-most turnovers in the league.

The inefficiency was in large part due to the Spurs' willingness to allow their prodigy to experiment and expand the limits of his game. He spent some of his summer working out with Jamal Crawford, the three-time Sixth Man of the Year who was known for his ankle-breaking ballhandling ability, to continue evolving his dribbling skills. The Spurs also recruited Chris Paul, the veteran point guard who ranks third on the all-time assists list, in free agency in part to make sure Wembanyama gets the ball in the spots he should. San Antonio doesn't want to put limits, or positional labels, on Wembanyama.

"I don't see the game really evolving into a position-based game," Wembanyama said this month. "Just as we see now, you have Jokic playing point guard sometimes. So, I think teams are going to figure out more and more what's the [best] way to use a player to his strengths. Honestly, I don't know how it's going to go.

"But hopefully, we can see a big variety of players emerging and of course, the prototypes like these are going to happen more and more."

In the opening minutes of his 29-point performance in Saturday's win over the Houston Rockets, Wembanyama got the ball a couple of steps over half court as Dillon Brooks guarded him. Julian Champagnie set a screen to force a switch, giving Wembanyama a bit of breathing room.

Wembanyama took one dribble to his left and casually let a 29-footer fly from the logo. Houston point guard Fred VanVleet, who was at a 14-inch height disadvantage, had no hope of contesting the shot.

Swish.

ESPN's Michael C. Wright contributed to this story.

Toronto Raptors forward Scottie Barnes will miss at least three weeks after he suffered a right orbital fracture during a game, the team announced Wednesday.

Barnes was forced to leave Monday's loss to the Denver Nuggets in the final minute of the fourth quarter after he was elbowed in the right eye by Nikola Jokic.

The Raptors said in a statement that Barnes would be reevaluated in three weeks, "and his condition will be updated as appropriate."

Barnes is averaging 19.3 points, 7.8 rebounds and 6.0 assists through four games this season.

The Rookie of the Year in 2021-22 and an All-Star last season, Barnes has averaged 16.7 points, 7.4 rebounds and 4.7 assists in 215 career games since being selected by the Raptors with the fourth overall pick of the 2021 NBA draft.

Information from The Associated Press and Field Level Media was used in this report.

The French Rugby Federation (FFR) has banned players from drinking alcohol during national team gatherings to help improve off-field discipline.

In July, France full-back Melvyn Jaminet was suspended for 34 weeks and fined 30,000 euros (25,335) by the FFR after he posted a racist video on social media during the summer tour of Argentina.

His team-mates Hugo Auradou, and Oscar Jegou, both 21, were also charged with the aggravated rape of a 39-year-old woman during the same tour, which both deny.

"These are places where the players are there to try and develop their physical and tactical abilities to the best of their ability," FFR vice president Jean-Marc Lhermet told reporters.

"The consumption of alcohol is not authorised in these places."

One of the other 20 steps announced by the FFR is a proposal to introduce drug and alcohol testing, with no overnight visitors allowed in players' rooms.

France head coach Fabien Galthie said the players backed the new measures.

"We did a questionnaire and all the players said yes," he added. "It was a logical and coherent development in relation to what had happened."

France play Japan, New Zealand and Argentina in their autumn internationals next month.

Edmonton Oilers star Connor McDavid will miss two to three weeks with an ankle injury, the team confirmed on Wednesday.

McDavid left Edmonton's 6-1 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday after injuring his ankle on his first shift of the game. He was tripped up by Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski's stick while crossing into the attacking zone and his left leg collided awkwardly with the boards. McDavid left the ice on his own and was ruled out of the game after having skated just 37 seconds. There was no penalty on the play.

McDavid, 27, went back to Edmonton for further evaluation, and the team announced that their captain is "expected to return to action in two to three weeks."

Considered the best player in the world, McDavid is coming off a 132-point season for Edmonton in which he led them to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final and won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. In his 10th NHL season, McDavid has 992 points in 655 career games. McDavid's 1.51 career points per game average is behind only Wayne Gretzky (1.92) and Mario Lemieux (1.88) in NHL history.

For the second straight season, the Oilers are off to a slow start. Edmonton is 4-5-1 in its first 10 games, with a minus-13 goal differential. McDavid has 10 points in those games (3 goals, 7 assists).

Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said McDavid's absence is an opening for others on the roster.

"It's more ice time, more opportunity," he said after the Blue Jackets loss. "It's tough any time you're playing without your best player, but it's something that we're going to have to [do]. Obviously, our team's going to look different."

NYON, Switzerland -- UEFA pledged Wednesday to steer 1 billion ($1.08 billion) toward all levels of women's soccer over the next six years as part of a comprehensive strategy to grow the game in Europe.

UEFA's goal is to make "football the most-played team sport for women and girls in every European country," as well as doubling the number of fully professional national leagues to six and raising the number of professional players from 3,000 to 5,000.

"It is our promise to keep investing and collectively lead the game forward, with all European national associations, leagues, clubs, players, fans and partners part of our journey," UEFA's director of women's soccer Nadine Kessler said in a statement.

The UEFA plan, dubbed "Unstoppable," includes developing paths for women and girls to play, coach and referee from the grassroots level.

Still, Kessler acknowledged in the 31-page document that there are "persistent challenges and obstacles to overcome" in getting more girls and women into the game.

The previous UEFA women's soccer strategy in 2019 aimed for 2.5 million registered players across its 55 member federations and the latest document reported 1.6 million last season.

The total prize money for clubs this season in the Women's Champions League is 24 million ($26 million), most of which is a 22 million ($23.9 million) subsidy from the men's competition, where the 32 clubs will share at least 2.5 billion ($2.71 billion).

Many players "still struggle to make a viable living from the game," Kessler said.

UEFA's marquee women's soccer asset is the European Championship and the 2022 final drew 50 million viewers who watched England beat Germany in London. The 2025 edition of the 16-team tournament will be hosted by Switzerland.

By 2030, UEFA will have organized two more Women's Euros and for the 2022 edition it spent 57.1 million ($62 million) on competition costs, according to its annual accounts. More than 20 million ($21.7 million) was paid in combined prize money to teams and to clubs for releasing players that were selected.

The 2023 Women's Champions League final, the UEFA report said, had 5.1 million viewers watching Barcelona beat Wolfsburg 3-2.

UEFA budgeted for spending of more than 53 million ($57.5 million) on women's competitions in its 2023-24 financial year, with the majority on the Champions League.

Europe provided the standout teams at the 2023 Women's World Cup, though Spain's 1-0 win over England in the final was overshadowed by the conduct of Luis Rubiales at the game in Sydney, Australia.

Rubiales, who eventually resigned as Spanish federation president and as a UEFA vice president, is set to have his appeal heard next week at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, against a three-year ban by FIFA.

Some of UEFA's billion-dollar investment is in already announced payments to the 55 members as part of its Hat Trick program, funded by the men's European Championship. That will send a total of 66 million ($71.6 million) to members from 2024-28 for women's soccer, the report said.

Lionel Messi transformed Inter Miami from a bottom-table team to one of the greatest in the history of Major League Soccer. Under his helm, the Herons lifted the 2023 inaugural Leagues Cup trophy, 2024 Supporters' Shield and set the new league record for most points recorded in a single MLS season with 74.

He revolutionized football in Fort Lauderdale in just over a year and a half as Inter Miami captain, and his teammates note Messi's contagious desire for greatness and ability to inspire constant improvement through example.

Though Messi will rarely be the one to lead loud halftime speeches or guide the team huddle on the field before the initial whistle, his subtle approach to leadership has made an immense impact among the younger generation at Inter Miami. On and off the field, from the final third or sidelines, the Argentine forward finds a way to elevate Inter Miami.

Goalkeeper Drake Callender revealed that this "Messi Effect" actually began on June 7, 2023, when the Argentina star first announced his intention to join the club in a televised interview with Mundo Deportivo. No one expected or prepared for the news, but the Miami players reacted before any paperwork had even been drafted.

"We were in Alabama, getting ready for our Open Cup game against Birmingham, and heard the announcement that he would officially join us," Callender said. "We were in our pregame meal, and after that moment, I said, 'Alright guys, we have to go and win because Messi can't join a team that's not competing. We want to be in good shape for when he joins.' That was a big transitional moment for us, organizationally, culturally, locker room-wise. Everything changed."

Inter Miami went on to beat Birmingham Legion FC 1-0 that afternoon to advance to the next round of the 2023 U.S. Open Cup, eventually reaching the final. Once he arrived in Fort Lauderdale, Messi's influence over his teammates naturally evolved. Behind closed doors at the Florida Blue training center, the Argentine striker intensified training sessions and raised the bar for all around him to perform at a higher level.

Messi turned a simple rondo at the start of practice into a vigorous exercise that left teammates with heightened senses and improved reflexes. A once routine introduction to everyday training used to warm up and loosen muscles evolved into a competition of the fittest under the new captain's watch. For Callender, training alongside Messi means facing the daunting challenge of blocking direct shots from the forward every week for the majority of the year.

Callender started his career in 2021 in South Florida with Inter Miami's affiliate team Fort Lauderdale CF. In just over two years, he went from facing USL opponents to honing his talent between the posts with the help of one of the greatest players in the world.

"When you have a player with very high quality like that around, I personally wouldn't be playing it the best I can without him," Callender said. "We're playing the best teams, but I've learned to stay grounded. When you train with a player with very high quality like that, how could I personally not be prepared the best I can?"

Beyond the tactical and technical benefits, Inter Miami goalkeeping coach Sebastian Saja revealed to ESPN that training alongside Messi has provided Callender with a mental advantage over opponents that correlates with his recent success on the pitch.

"There is no better training than that. No one is going to kick better than Messi in games, so if Drake can make two or three saves against Messi in training, that will fill him with confidence," Saja said to ESPN. "It allows him to think, well, the striker I face on Sunday is not going to score against me because I just saved Messi."

Since Messi joined Inter Miami on July 15, 2023, Callender has evolved into a game-saving figure. During the inaugural Leagues Cup final, just weeks after Messi arrived, the goalkeeper saved two penalty attempts in the shootout and scored the final attempt to clinch the team's first trophy.

Callender's actions on the pitch yielded call-ups to the U.S. men's national team and he was labeled "good for the group" by former head coach Gregg Berhalter.

A year later, he made another decisive save when stopping a penalty against the Columbus Crew on Oct. 2 to secure the 3-2 victory and win the 2024 Supporters' Shield. "His penalty save was crucial. I believe we have one of the best goalkeepers in the league," said head coach Gerardo Martino.

In 2024, Callender managed his best shot-stopping season by saving 3.6 goals more than expected, according to FBref, to rank in eighth place among all MLS goalkeepers. His efforts on the pitch and five clean sheets also propelled Inter Miami to clinch the MLS record for most points recorded in a single season.

For midfielder Benjamin Cremaschi, the lessons from Messi come in the form of conversations during training and before matches. The young midfielder kicked off his career with Inter Miami's academy in 2021, playing an important role in the under-17 team's win at the Generation Adidas Cup. Despite standing out on an academy level, Cremaschi only made his senior team debut in February 2023.

In the span of five months, Cremaschi went from being a substitute under former head coach Phil Neville to playing an integral role in the 2023 trophy-winning Leagues Cup run alongside Messi. The inexperienced player was suddenly called upon by Martino and given a crash course by the Argentine forward on how to succeed and maximize his potential.

"We talk about things he needs from me in games to connect, what he thinks I can improve on and learn," Cremaschi said. "He asks me for better positioning, waiting for the ball, staying more stationary, not always being in movement, but trying to create space to generate space for the 10. I try to absorb everything he tells me because I have to learn from him, he is the best."

Cremaschi went on to explain how the communication between the two players has evolved into hand gestures and signals during matches, which often inspire threatening opportunities in the final third. Since Messi's debut, Cremaschi has recorded five goals and seven assists, while improving his pass accuracy percentage from 85% in 2023 to 88.8% in 2024. His upward trajectory also earned Cremaschi a call-up to the U.S. men's national senior team and a spot on the 2024 USMNT Olympic roster, with the team reaching the quarterfinals in their first tournament appearance since 2008.

Though the tactical improvements vary from position to position, Martino insists Messi's influence is undeniable.

"They are learning day by day," Martino said to ESPN. "The younger players see, fundamentally, how he competes. They observe the way he competes in training. They copy him for being competitive, for always wanting to be at the highest level of play, for getting angry, for fighting, that when you have it on a day-to-day basis improvements come."

Inter Miami lifted their first piece of MLS silverware on Oct. 2 and broke the league's points record by three. By the end of September, the team nearly doubled last year's 34-point tally, recording 64 points in just 30 games with many of the same key supporting figures in the starting 11.

Players who had previously only seen time with Inter Miami's second team or academy and collegiate teams are now playing a pivotal role in a title race, with the guidance of the club captain.

Yannick Bright, who joined the team in December as 2024 MLS SuperDraft first-round selection, quickly maximized his rookie year by learning from Messi and adapting to the game under coach Martino. His offensive qualities in the midfield earned him a starting role in 12 out of a possible 15 regular season games since July 19, after averaging 3.13 tackles, 2.05 interceptions, 1.98 blocks and 2.30 clearances per 90 minutes, according to FBref.

The player's actions in the midfield ranked him in ninth place for most interruptions in the midfield among MLS players with at least 1,000 minutes this year, according to American Soccer Analysis.

"I want to also mention Yannick Bright, who, for me, was the best player of the night," Martino said after Inter Miami's 2-1 victory over the Chicago Fire on July 20. "Yannick is a player who stole as many as 12 balls, I don't know the exact number, but that is something you don't see very often in this league. And he rarely commits fouls and typically directs the ball with smart decisions. That is a great attribute for a central midfielder and he understands the game well."

Inter Miami academy product Noah Allen, who debuted for the senior team on Feb. 26, 2022, served as a lifeline to Martino this season after the backline suffered several injuries throughout the campaign. Martino often called on Allen to serve, after impressing with his stability on the ball.

Against Toronto FC on Oct. 5, Allen mitigated the opponent's 15 shots while completing 93 passes, the most from any Inter Miami player on the field, with a 94.9% accuracy.

"Noah Allen was the best player on the pitch for us," Martino said after Miami's 1-0 victory over Toronto FC with Luis Suárez and Sergio Busquets on the field.

Fans may be quick to credit Messi for Inter Miami's rise to the top this season after the forward tied for second place in the Golden Boot race with 20 goals and contributed 16 assists in just 19 games. But behind his eye-catching statistics stand several supporting players that have been able to sustain momentum while he's unavailable.

During Copa America, while the forward led Argentina to the trophy, Miami racked up 12 points out of a possible 15. Messi then went on to miss an additional two months after suffering a right ankle sprain during the final. But Inter Miami continued to handle his injury well by managing a 4-0-0 (W-L-D) record in MLS and 2-2-0 record in Leagues Cup.

Key contributors Suarez, Busquets and Jordi Alba continued to support the team, but players in every area of the pitch stepped up to inspire success. David Ruiz, Cremaschi, Diego Gómez and Federico Redondo all contributed on the goal-scoring front to propel Inter Miami to a whopping 68 goals scored this season, while academy players Ian Fray and Allen braved the backline to secure several victories.

Cremaschi and Robert Taylor single-handedly led the 2-1 victory over Charlotte FC on July 3, while Gomez and Redondo each scored on July 17 to clinch the triumph over Toronto FC.

Taylor has consistently served for Inter Miami on the left-wing in 2024, recording five goals and four assists in 27 games. He contributed to several matches in the absence of Messi, providing Leonardo Campana and Suarez with support before completing his own attempts. Still, the player continues to cite Messi as the source of motivation for all at the club.

"We see him every day, we see him working hard to get back," Inter Miami forward Taylor said, about those times when Messi was unable to play. "Even without saying anything to him we saw him desperate to come. So when he's so motivated to get back into this team, it motivates us to make sure we are in the best position for when he returns."

Despite his absence on the pitch, Messi continued to enact his duties as Inter Miami captain and make his presence known to support the team. He continued to provide advice when needed, chatting with teammates during gym sessions or before a match at Chase Stadium and providing useful tips to apply to the opponent at hand.

Since joining Inter Miami on July 12, 2023, Messi has broken several MLS records, earned the club a trophy and elevated the Herons to become an international sensation. But his legacy at the team will live beyond the numbers and statistics, as his teammates go on to have successful careers propelled, in part, by Messi's teachings in Fort Lauderdale.