Do Inter Miami’s fans really need more from Lionel Messi than the kind of dazzling performance Sunday that could have many sit around years from now saying, “Yeah, I still remember what he did in that meaningless Portland game.”

He scored a signature goal. He delivered a rub-your-eyes assist. But did he need to give a traditional soccer wave to acknowledge fans?

Or perhaps one of those customary, overhand claps walking off the field that soccer players are expected to do at game’s end?

This isn’t some hypothetical or binary, take-Messi-or-the-fans-side question. It’s a so-silly, too-petty, only-in-soccer controversy that erupted at Nu Stadium during Inter Miami’s 2-0 win between the planet’s biggest athlete and the team’s most passionate fans.

Inter Miami has the best show in MLS history and it’s not enough for its most passionate fans. They stood at one end of the stadium where they usually make forever noise and gave Messi and Inter Miami the silent treatment Sunday.

No drums. No flag waving. No cheers or trademark chants until the final minutes when they turned a common Spanish chant into something that angrily demanded the players acknowledge their presence.

Messi, hearing it, walked toward them and gave a hand gesture that appeared to express his displeasure with the fans. He and a few other players then acknowledged the three other sides of the stadium with those so-coveted waves as the game ended, but ignored the side of these passionate fans that call themselves La Familia.

Can someone step in here? Help both sides? Say how petty it comes across — and to just enjoy these good times for everyone while they last?

La Familia is upset Messi and other players ignored them in the previous three games at the new, Nu Stadium. Inter Miami didn’t win any of them. So maybe the players forgot the customary wave to fans after a disappointing game on their minds while leaving the field?

What if instead of berating Messi with a chant at game’s end, they instead chanted something lighter-hearted like, “Hello, Lionel! We’re over here!” Instead, they were angry.

It wasn’t just fans who missed the target. Messi, made aware of the fans’ frustration, could have walked down the field at game’s end and delivered a big, beautiful, two-handed wave. Turned something bad into something good. Instead, that petulant hand signal to them.

Messi, of course, can do whatever he wants. That’s part of his deal signing here. He’s Messi. He’s bigger than the team, bigger than the league and all the sellout crowds coming to watch him really come for what he provided midway through the first half Sunday.

A quick dart to open space in front of the net.

A laser shot into the corner of the net.

That was his 12th goal, good for second in the league. He then added his sixth assist with catch-me-if-you can moves with the ball followed by a thread-the-defense pass that resulted in Miami’s second goal.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,’’ Apple TV analyst Taylor Twellman said after that assist, followed quickly as the replay ran on Apple TV by, “Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!”

Throw in another half-dozen moments from a near goal in the opening minutes to another off a direct kick at the end and this is what Messi delivers every game. He also brings no personality off it. He hasn’t offered a glimpse of who he is or his thoughts on, well, anything. He hasn’t given a local media interview in more than three years.

Does it matter? Not in many ways. If conquering more than American soccer matters to him, giving something of himself is part of the transaction. But he’s winning enough, he’s decided. His world doesn’t need ESPN to do more than give a five-second clip of a goal.

When Inter Miami won the MLS championship last season only the coach, Javier Mascherano, spoke in the post-game press conference and, through that, to the fans. Much of this is an extension of the soccer culture, not the American sports culture.

The Messi Rule is Messi rules. You’d cut that if you were Inter Miami, too. He makes $28.3 million from a deal with Inter Miami — more than 28 of the teams’ payrolls. Inter Miami has revenue around $300 million. It works for Messi, too, as his league-sponsored deals put his annual salary at around a reported $80 million.

“Inter Miami over the last three and a half years have taken the whole MLS to another level, and every single person involved, on and off the pitch, should be incredibly excited because what that’s done is raise the bar and everybody else has to catch up,’’ said Portland coach Phil Neville, who previously coached Inter Miami.

“It’s created rivalries. Owners are now competing, which is great, billionaires all wanting to be on top of the tree, spending more money and that only helps the league.”

Amid all this impact by Messi, on a night he was magical in a win, this should’ve been part of the highest times for Inter Miami and its fans. They should enjoy it. It’s petty for fans to pout he hadn’t waved to them. It didn’t look good that he didn’t detonate the scene with a quick wave, too.

Here’s a thought: He walks out before the next game, gives these fans a welcome salute and ends all this pettiness.

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