FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — At the start of Inter Miami’s new MLS season, the question of last season lingers.

Not how they lost to bottom-seed Atlanta in the playoffs’ opening round.

Not if they win any of the trophies they missed out on last year in this season’s four competitions.

Not even if Messi’s presence can set more attendance records and drive Apple TV subscriptions even more. Because you know that’s a given.

Here’s the question: What do you expect to get out of this entire Messi experience at Inter Miami?

And make no doubt it is the Messi experience multiplied this season. The team that opens Saturday against New York City FC at Chase Stadium underlines that. Team owners Jorge and Jose Mas and David Beckham handed over the keys to the franchise for Messi to either make or bless decisions that would keep him around and happy.

Just as the owners should.

As you would to keep the world’s best player and biggest soccer marketer on your team.

In mid-November, in the wake of their staggering playoff loss to Atlanta, coach Tata Martino left the team for his stated “personal reasons.”

Within the week, Javier Mascherano received his first professional coaching job. So, no big coaching search was undertaken. None was needed, considering Mascherano’s credentials, too.

Playing more than 400 games at Barcelona with Messi (and Inter Miami teammates Jordi Alba, Sergio Busquets and Luis Suarez) and Argentina’s national team said Mascherano fulfilled the prime requirement:

Have a good relationship with Messi.

“Little Boss,’’ they called Mascherano as a player. Now he’s a bigger boss who has only coached Argentinian national youth teams and will have to manage this Inter Miami team through four competitions: MLS, the FIFA Club World Cup, the Leagues Cup and the CONCACAF Champions Cup, which began Wednesday in Kansas City.

“It’s been 49, 50 days,’’ Mascherano said Friday morning, looking at his watch, as if measuring how much work he can get done in a short time.

That 1-0 win in Kansas City, played in sub-zero weather, underlined some rare issues for Inter Miami. It arrived home at 4 a.m., took Thursday off and Mascherano said Friday morning not everyone would be fit for Saturday’s MLS opener.

They’re already down goalie Drake Callender, who suffered an undisclosed muscle injury last year and hasn’t yet trained with Inter Miami this season.

That means 38-year-old Oscar Ustari is the starting goalie and one of nine Argentines on the team. Another understandable nod to Messi.

But, again, what do you expect from this team?

Winning is a starting point, especially when you consider Inter Miami has sold out its season-ticket allotment at prices that have doubled since Messi’s arrival.

But in some form, Inter Miami is about the moment in the manner that defines the best of sports. If they win, it’s celebrated locally. If not, it remains a show full of sports celebrities the likes of which don’t play soccer elsewhere in America.

So, there’s little applied pressure on Inter Miami to win in the manner of other South Florida teams. As defender Jordi Albi and Mascherano talked Friday on the eve of the opener, two local newspapers and no South Florida television stations were on hand.

The pressure on this teams comes beyond South Florida. The international scrutiny of Inter Miami remains unparalleled in the MLS history, and the eyeballs from Apple TV represent a historic marriage in sports.

There’s also a professional responsibility of these players nearing the end of brilliant careers. To be beaten by an Atlanta team led by a 41-year-old goalie, Brad Guzan, sat with them like bad food this offseason.

“We’re ready to go,’’ Alba said. “New year.”

New coach. New depth to the roster. But starting Saturday night, the question isn’t so much whether Inter Miami wins with its stacked roster.

It’s whether they have to win or are a success just by lining up before sellout crowds every time they take the pitch.

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