Casemiro agrees Inter Miami move after his Manchester United exit

Casemiro is on his way to Major League Soccer. The Brazil midfielder has agreed to join Inter Miami once his Manchester United contract expires on June 30, with Fabrizio Romano reporting that the move is fully agreed and the formalities all but done. It reunites him with the project Lionel Messi has been building in Florida and ends a four-year stay at Old Trafford that began with promise and faded into the background.

The timing is tied up with the summer. Casemiro is currently at the World Cup with Brazil, so nothing can be rushed. Inter Miami will only register him when MLS reopens its secondary transfer window on July 13, which means his earliest possible debut comes after that date and after Brazil’s tournament is done.

Filling the hole Busquets left

Miami have looked light in central midfield ever since Sergio Busquets retired at the end of the 2025 season, bowing out after lifting the MLS Cup. Casemiro is the man lined up to take that anchor role, sitting behind Messi and Rodrigo De Paul and giving the side the kind of defensive spine it has missed for much of the year. At 34, he is not the all-action force he was at his peak, but holding midfield is exactly the role where reading the game matters more than legs.

Not a Designated Player

What makes the deal work for Miami is that it does not cost them a marquee slot. The club have already used their three Designated Player spots on Messi, De Paul and German Berterame, so Casemiro arrives on a more modest contract rather than as a headline signing. For a free agent of his pedigree, a five-time Champions League winner at Real Madrid before his United move, that is a notable piece of business. Miami are also understood to have seen off interest from the Saudi Pro League to get it done.

A new chapter after Old Trafford

Casemiro’s United spell never quite settled into a clear story. He arrived in 2022 as the experienced winner the squad badly needed, had stretches where he looked the best midfielder at the club, and others where age and a struggling team caught up with him. Leaving on a free, with a World Cup still to play and Messi’s Miami waiting, is a softer landing than many of his United years suggested he would get. Whether he has enough left to lift a team chasing another MLS Cup is the question Miami are betting on.

Keep up with the summer’s biggest transfer moves