The end was abrupt and painful. On Saturday night in South Florida, the locker room was somber. And somewhere amid the haze of the biggest upset in Major League Soccer history, a startling reality set in: Lionel Messi will enter the final guaranteed year of his MLS contract without a single playoff series victory.

He was supposed to transform the league and Inter Miami. In some ways, he certainly has. But his body failed him in 2023. Atlanta United stunned him in 2024. He slumped off into his second MLS offseason with more uncertainty than hope, and with a penetrating question looming:

Where do Messi and Inter Miami go from here?

The answer, in one sense, didn’t change Saturday night. They will still be the faces of the league in 2025. They will, thanks to FIFA, headline the Club World Cup, a platform on which their global ambitions could flourish.

But the rest of the answer depends on where MLS lets them go — and, eventually, on what Messi wants to do with the rest of his life.

Can Messi’s dream team get the boost it needs?

When Messi signed with Inter and MLS last June, he did so on a two-and-a-half-year contract, reportedly with an option to add a year and stay through 2026.

The league’s official “roster profiles” don’t list that option year. But regardless, barring something completely unforeseen, Messi will be back next season. So will Sergio Busquets. Jordi Alba and Luis Suarez likely will be as well — Alba has a 2025 option in his contract, and Suarez revealed last month that he wants to extend his. The core of the superteam should remain intact.

Beyond the Fantastic Four, goalkeeper Drake Callender, defender Tomás Avilés, midfielder Federico Redondo, midfielder Julian Gressel, winger Facundo Farías (who missed the entire 2024 season after tearing his ACL), striker Leonardo Campana, midfielder Benjamin Cremaschi and other youngsters are all under contract through 2025.

The club could also choose to bring back midfielder Matías Rojas, defender Marcelo Weigandt and midfielder Yannick Bright — all regulars in 2024.

Aside from star midfielder Diego Gomez, a breakout star who’s off to Brighton in England, Miami could essentially run it back. And despite Saturday’s shocking loss, that wouldn’t be an outlandish idea. The Herons were the class of MLS in 2024. They won more regular-season points than any other team in league history. They crumbled this month less because they had fatal flaws, more so because soccer is fluky.

They did, of course, have flaws. Their midfield was porous against the ball. Their defense was shaky. They’ll surely target a solid center back to partner Avilés in 2025. They can’t keep conceding more than 1.5 Expected Goals (xG) per game, as they did this past season, and expect to roll to MLS Cup.

But they also can’t, by rule, add too many meaningful pieces under current MLS spending restrictions.

Loads of useful players would love to come play with Messi. Most can’t, unless they take sizable pay cuts, because MLS roster rules are among the most prohibitive and arcane in global soccer. Neymar, for example, has frequently been linked with a move to Miami. But “today, this is impossible,” Miami head coach Tata Martino said recently. The only way to enable it, Martino explained, would be for the league to “make the salary issue more flexible.”

Technically, Miami might have a tad more flexibility than Martino suggested. But the broader point is that, with salaries and foreign players subject to certain caps, it is very difficult for any star-powered MLS club to also build a deep, well-rounded team.

The hope — in Miami and elsewhere, though certainly not everywhere — is that rules could change. Messi’s arrival empowered Inter owner Jorge Mas and others at the head of the league to push for a loosening of restrictions. When asked last winter why loosening hadn’t yet happened, MLS EVP of player strategy Todd Durbin said that league execs had eschewed incremental tweaks for 2024 because they didn’t want to “corner ourselves, or pigeonhole ourselves,” in case they “wanted to make more sweeping changes, or do a more significant overhaul of the system.”

Will that overhaul finally come this offseason? The committee that effectively decides, the MLS sporting and competition committee, is scheduled to meet Nov. 20 in Los Angeles. One person close to the decision-making process told Yahoo Sports that the “salary cap and player investment model” is a big-ticket item on the committee’s agenda. Any proposed changes could then be approved by the MLS board of governors (the owners) at their final meeting of the year on Dec. 12.

A true overhaul could significantly change the calculus for the final year(s) of Messi in Miami. And it could allow them to be more competitive on the biggest stage MLS has ever had.

Countdown begins for Miami at Club World Cup’s global stage

The first edition of the expanded Club World Cup is coming to the United States next summer — as long as FIFA can find a way to fund it. Part of the plan to attract broadcasters and sponsors, apparently, was to give Inter Miami the tournament’s one free spot, even though the Herons didn’t qualify via any pre-set criteria.

So, in June, for the first time, they’ll likely face a UEFA Champions League team in a competitive match.

They could meet Boca Juniors or River Plate; or Palmeiras, Flamengo or Fluminense.

They will surely play in front of a global television audience several times the size of what they get for MLS games on Apple. They’ll have a chance to grow their international brand, and establish Miami as a destination for players and fans long after Messi leaves.

That will be the peak of their 2025 campaign. Then they’ll settle in for another MLS grind, another Leagues Cup, and another playoff run.

Whether it will be Messi’s last is to be determined. He has consistently said, as recently as last month, that he does not know whether he’ll still be playing pro soccer in 2026. “I hope to start [2025] having a very good preseason — which I didn’t have last year with all the trips we had — and from there, see how I’m doing,” Messi said in an interview on the eve of the playoffs.

For now, he is living “day to day,” in the moment, enjoying himself. He continues to serve and star for the Argentina national team. They are well on their way to qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.

That landmark tournament, which will be played across North America, could compel Messi to extend his Inter Miami contract beyond 2025. If he doesn’t want to play another full MLS season, he could benefit from a mooted wrinkle: League executives and owners are considering flipping their calendar, beginning seasons in August and concluding in spring, from 2026 onwards. If they do make the change — a possibility but not yet a probability — they’d play a unique, one-off competition in the spring of 2026 to bridge the gap, three people familiar with the discussions told Yahoo Sports. Messi could sign up for that as his Inter Miami swan song.

But even then, his MLS window would be halfway shut.

Suddenly, after Saturday, clocks in Miami — and at league HQ — are audibly ticking.