Belgian cycling star Remco Evenepoel confirmed Friday he will return to competition for the Tour of Switzerland after pulling out of the Giro d'Italia while leading...

Lionel Messi is the only footballer whose shadow carries a gun. While he plays for Inter Miami, his bodyguard stalks the touchline: Yassine Cheuko is an ex-Navy Seal with a thick beard and a shaved head who treats his client like a president in a warzone, staring down giddy autograph-hunters and swatting away selfie-chasing children. During a recent match, a young pitch-invader in a Messi shirt made a dash towards his hero only to be walloped by Cheuko’s torso on arrival. Messi is like the sun: by all means enjoy his presence and bask in his glow, but by god do not look him in the eye – and if you touch him, you’re dead. It is just one of the more bizarre symptoms of Messi fever which has gripped Miami and Major League Soccer since his arrival in June. It began before he kicked a ball: Messi’s pink shirt outsold any sports jersey in history in its first 24 hours, generating $600m to surpass Cristiano Ronaldo’s return to Manchester United and Tom Brady’s move to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Miami’s Instagram account exploded from 1 million to 15 million followers, a bigger audience than every NFL team. Kim Kardashian bought tickets to his debut, while the list of special guests to watch him play at Los Angeles Galaxy was like Wimbledon’s Royal Box on steroids, featuring LeBron James, Selena Gomez, Owen Wilson, Gerard Butler, Leonardo DiCaprio and genuine royalty in Prince Harry, to name but a few. On the pitch Messi has been phenomenal, even at 36 years old and in the winter of his career: 11 goals and five assists in 11 games, and one trophy already. He has turned a terrible team into a good one, lifting Miami off the bottom of the table to be in with a chance of reaching US soccer’s Super Bowl equivalent, the MLS Cup, in December. He has brought with him from Barcelona two close allies: the left-back Jordi Alba, who built a career pretending to cross the ball only to cut back for Messi to score, and the great midfield conductor Sergio Busquets. It is a bit like a singer bringing along his sound and lighting technicians – not the full band but enough to put on a show. Perhaps his most memorable moment so far came in the final of the Leagues Cup against Nashville: as the ball bounced to Messi arriving on the edge of the box, the commentator let out a foreboding “uh oh” before he shuffled away from two defenders and curled the ball into the top corner. Major League Soccer is rightfully indulging in the moment. “The 🐐 plays here,” reads the Twitter bio these days. This is now an unprecedented window of opportunity: the US will host the Copa America in 2024, the Club World Cup in 2025, the men’s World Cup in 2026 and quite possibly the women’s World Cup in 2027 too. The football landscape is more competitive than ever amid the aggressive emergence of the Saudi Pro League and the greed of Europe’s superpowers, but if MLS cannot shed its image as a paid vacation for retirees and establish something serious now, it never will. That mission was part of Miami’s sales pitch to Messi. David Beckham and his fellow owners knew they couldn’t compete with the base salary being offered in Saudi Arabia, but they could offer other benefits which the Saudis couldn’t. They appealed to Messi’s family – he already owned a home in Miami, from where it is relatively easy to fly back to Argentina, and the Messis have enjoyed partying with the Beckhams behind the scenes. And they included huge commercial investments, like a share in sales of MLS broadcaster Apple, with whom Messi had an existing relationship, and a stake in Inter Miami which he can activate when he departs. Messi was convinced by the long-term opportunities for his brand and his legacy in North America. He was also wooed by some romantic history. Pele became a pioneer when he turned down offers across Europe to join the New York Cosmos in 1975. It had appealed to his ego to be the catalyst who made US soccer catch fire, and he was certainly that: the Cosmos played in front of 200 people before Pele, yet two years later they were filling the Giants Stadium with 77,000 converts. Beckham himself has had the greatest impact in America since Pele, and Messi is next in the dynasty. The problem for MLS is where to go next. Each new star since Beckham delivered another flurry of excitement – Thierry Henry, Kaka, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Wayne Rooney – but there is no footballing high greater than watching Messi, no bigger dopamine hit than seeing his feet shuffle into life and create magic. Messi is football hedonism, and when he goes he cannot simply be replaced by a bigger, shinier star. The come down will hurt. How do you sell yourself as a serious sporting product when one player is that much better than the rest? So MLS has a plan to harness the hype and turn it into something that will last. Last year the league ditched long-term broadcast partner ESPN and signed with Messi’s friends at Apple, in what represented the tech company’s biggest step yet into the sports arena. Apple committed to a 10-year contract worth $250m per year for the right to show MLS on its platforms, and more lucrative media deals will follow. Long-time MLS commissioner Don Garber wants to invest in youth development, better stadiums and infrastructure for the long-term success of American soccer. But the league’s immediate need is to acquire talent, and here the clubs are met with restrictions. The MLS adheres to a strict salary cap designed to stop clubs overspending. It can be dodged via the designated player rule – or Beckham Rule – which allows each team to pay three star players more than the salary cap, but unless restrictions loosen further it will be impossible for the biggest teams in the league to sign more elite talent. Miami have certainly filled their quota and are in no position to sign more ex-Barcelona stars until those rules change. All the while, the danger is that Messi makes football look so easy, he undermines the league’s integrity. The drop-off from European football or the World Cup to MLS is a void – not just physically and technically, but in its tactical sophistication and defensive organisation. The worst MLS teams, of which Miami were one before Messi, match the upper echelons of England’s League Two, according to the models of consultancy Twenty First Group. That’s like dropping Messi into Gillingham’s first XI: how do you sell yourself as a serious sporting product when one player is that much better than the rest? It will be a hard journey to raise standards across the board, but Messi does at least provide the best possible platform from which to grow. Most European football fans have been devotees for a long time, but now the gospel of Messi is spreading throughout the United States. New followers are flocking to see him in the flesh. So enjoy watching Messi, America. Seize the moment. Just don’t try to touch him. Read More Every Lionel Messi goal, assist and key moment for Inter Miami Mbappe and Haaland begin new Champions League rivarly after Messi-Ronaldo era When does Lionel Messi play next? Inter Miami schedule and fixtures Cristiano Ronaldo declares rivalry with Lionel Messi ‘is over’ Messi favourite for men’s Ballon d’Or with four Lionesses on women’s list It turned out wrong – Ole Gunnar Solskjaer on Cristiano Ronaldo’s Man Utd return

The Atlanta Braves could use a left fielder. Thankfully for them, the Colorado Rockies have one to sell at the trade deadline.The Braves and Rockies are currently in the midst of a three-game series at Truist Park. Atlanta general manager Alex Anthopoulos has received an up close and personal lo...

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The world is full of ridiculous gender stereotypes and tropes: girls like pink and Barbies; boys like blue and cars, to name but two of the most obvious. And yet, when it comes to masculinity, we didn’t know hydration could prove such a fraught subject. However, one Twitter user (named only as Chloe) has sparked an impassioned debate after publicly announcing: “Men who carry water bottles out in public give me the ick. Especially at the airport.” She then added, by way of explanation: “You can’t go a few hours without having your little sips of water? Carrying around anything is a feminine trait. “The only things men should be carrying around are his wallet and a pocketknife.” Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Her tweet racked up 6.5 million views and more than 4,220 shares in less than two days as commentators shared their take on her assessment. Inevitably it was met with fury by many, who suggested it be added to a seemingly endless list of things “masculine men aren’t allowed to do (according to social media)”. “Now we can’t even enjoy the most vital nutrient known to mankind,” lamented another. Others pointed out that carrying a penknife in an airport was far from advisable, with one writing: “This idiot is missing her flight because her man tried to bring a pocketknife through security and along with his uncomfortable strip search is gonna have to buy a $7 bottle of water to quench his thirst after a tense hour in the TSA’s custody.” Others described Chloe as “Andrew Tate’s dream girl”, and pointed to laughably ridiculous comments he once made about men who carry water bottles not being “combat ready”. Meanwhile, Chloe doubled down on her original statement, writing that men should “take [their] sips of water in private”. In response to another comment which read: “Real men drink sparkling water at nice dinner [sic],” she wrote simply: “Yes, this is true.” Her replies prompted numerous commentators to suggest the whole thing was either a joke or a sneaky attack on masculinity itself. One such observer wrote: “I truly think the way to defeat patriarchy would just be to make up increasingly impossible and random standards of masculinity until men break and admit they aren't into this whole masculinity thing anyway.” However, if you glance through one of Chloe’s Substack blogs, you’ll note it’s not the first time she’s expressed a belief in polarising gender standards. In one piece, in which she analyses the cult right-wing book ‘Bronze Age Mindset’, she writes: Every man should read this book if they wish to reclaim their masculinity and innate life-force that modern society has taken away from them.” All we can say is, we need more than a sip of water after all this. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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