Did Inter Miami move young homegrown star Benjamin Cremaschi too soon?

Inter Miami homegrown talent bolstering resume with USMNT U-20s

Suddenly, Inter Miami CF's decision to send homegrown midfielder Benjamin Cremaschi, 20, to Italian Serie A side Parma seems a little premature.

Cremaschi is captain of the under-20 U.S. Men's National Team competing at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Chile, a team beat Italy 3-0 Thursday to advance to the quarterfinals for the fifth-straight time and ninth overall. Cremaschi, born to Argentine parents in Miami and raised in Key Biscayne, is showing production as well as leadership at the tournament; he's contributed five goals and two assists and earned Player of the Match honors twice in four matches (wins against New Caledonia, France and South Africa).

"Benja" was a budding star in Pink & Black, one of the first Inter Miami Academy players to join the first team. He saw regular minutes under first Phil Neville and then Tata Martino in 2023, when he helped then-newcomer Lionel Messi and Los Garzas win the Leagues Cup, the club's first major trophy, with two assists and a goal. He featured regularly under Martino again in 2024 as the Herons set a Major League Soccer record with 74 points.

But his playing time dwindled this year under first-year coach Javier Mascherano; when he did play, he was used in unfamiliar positions. Cremaschi is a natural box-to-box central midfielder, but Mascherano played him on the wing, as a right back, even briefly as a center back.

"I go to the games, and I have no idea where I'm going to play," Cremaschi said in a pre-match interview Aug. 16; on Sept. 2, Inter Miami announced he'd been loaned to Parma through June 2026 with a club option to buy his rights.

To be fair, Ben Crem's implied criticism of Mascherano may have been coincidental to the Pink's decision to send him to Europe. Mascherano's favored 4-2-3-1 formation uses just two central defensive midfielders; the addition of Atlético Madrid and Argentina star Rodrigo De Paul to the roster in July gave Inter Miami a surplus of CDMs: all-time great Sergio Busquets, up-and-comer Yannick Bright, promising Argentine Federico Redondo, and Cremaschi. None of them possess the technical ability to challenge Messi, Baltasar Rodriguez, Telasco Segovia, Tadeo Allende or Fafa Picault for time in the attack (although Mascherano has played his defensive mids forward at times).

Two days before Cremaschi made his ill-advised comments to the media, Inter Miami sent Redondo to Spain and La Liga side Eche. Busquets, an iron man for the Herons since arriving with Messi in 2023, is retiring at the end of the season. It's reasonable to think De Paul, still in his prime at 31, and Bright, 24, a second-year standout born and raised in Italy who played college soccer at New Hampshire and was the Herons' first-round draft pick in 2024, will start as the defensive pivot. But it would have been nice to be able to count on a 20-year-old local kid and fan favorite for depth.

Cremaschi and Co. will try to make the U-20 World Cup semifinals for the first time since 1989 on Sunday when they play Morocco at 5 p.m. Eastern. Morocco eliminated South Korea 2-1 Thursday.

In other quarterfinal matches, Mexico plays Argentina (and Inter Miami striker Mateo Silvetti) and Spain meet Colombia on Saturday; on Sunday, Norway and France contest the final quarterfinal match.