Forty-two million dollars can buy a lot of things, but apparently it can’t buy an MLS championship, because for the second time in as many seasons Inter Miami came up short in trying to spend its way to a league title.
This time it was Atlanta United, the lowest seed in the 18-team playoff field, a team that has played the last five months with an interim coach and one with a payroll less than half the size of Miami’s, who delivered the fatal blow, beating Lionel Messi’s team Saturday in the deciding game of a best-of-three, first-round playoff series.