Lionel Messi and Inter Miami put together the best regular season in Major League Soccer history.
Messi had three goals and an assist in the second half alone, Luis Suárez had a pair of goals in the first half and Inter Miami defeated the New England Revolution 6-2 on Saturday night to finish the season with an MLS record of 74 points – one more than the 2021 revolution.
It was Messi’s first hat-trick for Inter Miami, the team the Argentine superstar joined midway through the 2023 season in a huge win for Major League Soccer.
Going 22-4-8 in league play, Inter Miami finished the season with a winning percentage of .765, setting another MLS record. There were four teams – DC United (24-8) and LA Galaxy (24-8) in 1998, LAFC (21-4-9) in 2019 and New England (22-5-7) in 2021 – with a win . MLS season with a winning percentage of .750, which until Saturday night was first.
Now the first place belongs to Inter Miami, both in terms of points and in terms of best won-lost-drawn score. Inter Miami also became the eighth team in MLS history to get through a regular season with just four losses, tying another record.
Messi – who played about 35 minutes and scored three more times on Saturday – finished the regular season with 20 goals and 16 assists in 19 games.
Suárez scored 20 goals in his first MLS season, and his strikes – about three minutes apart – helped Inter Miami erase an early 2-0 deficit. Luca Langoni and Dylan Borrero had the goals for New England.
The rest of the game was all Miami. The team brought a podium onto the pitch after the match to recognize the Supporters’ Shield victory, which the team claimed on the road earlier this month, and shot pink confetti into the air as time expired.
Suárez’s brace brought the hosts level by half-time and Benja Cremaschi scored the go-ahead goal in the 58th minute. Messi had an assist on Cremaschi’s goal, an assist that came just seconds after the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner entered the match.
There was some doubt about whether Messi would play at all, especially since Inter Miami had already clinched the Supporters’ Shield and No. 1 seed in the MLS Cup playoffs. The only thing at stake for Inter Miami on Saturday was the record.
And there was a scare in the 74th minute when Messi made a mistake, screamed in pain and grabbed his right ankle as he lay on the ground. He has missed 15 of Inter Miami’s MLS matches in 2024, either due to commitments to the Argentina national team or the two-month absence he needed to recover from a seriously injured ankle – an injury that occurred during his race country to the Copa América title in July.
It was just a bit of a shock.
Messi scored about two minutes apart in the second half, turning a 3-2 lead into a 5-2 defeat and it was only a matter of time before the record would belong to Inter Miami. And the capper came in the 89th minute, with Suárez throwing the ball to Messi for an easy score that completed the hat-trick.
Up next for Inter Miami: Game 1 of a best-of-three first-round series at home Friday night. It will be the first home game in club history.
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Inter Miami gets a place at the Club World Cup in 2025
FIFA President Gianni Infantino announced on Saturday evening that Inter Miami will participate in the tournament, something that had long been expected given Messi’s enormous popularity around the world and the fact that the tournament had already scheduled some matches in South Florida.
The event, held every four years, features 32 teams from FIFA’s six football confederations. Inter Miami will play in the tournament opener, scheduled for June 15, 2025, at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.
“I am proud to announce that you, as one of the best clubs in the world, are deserved participants in the new Fifa Club World Cup 2025 as the host club representing the United States,” Infantino said during an on-pitch ceremony after Inter Miami. broke Major League Soccer’s record for most points in a regular season.
The tournament runs until July 13, with the final scheduled for MetLife Stadium in New Jersey – also the site of the 2026 World Cup final. So far, the Club World Cup has not attracted any major US sponsors and there is no deal in place on media rights.
Other US locations that will host the Club World Cup include Atlanta, Cincinnati, Nashville, Charlotte, Orlando, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington and Seattle.
Twelve teams from Europe are participating in the Club World Cup. They are Atlético Madrid, Bayern Munich, Benfica, Borussia Dortmund, Chelsea, Inter Milan, Juventus, Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain, Porto, Real Madrid and Salzburg.
Other teams that have qualified include Boca Juniors, Flamengo, Fluminense, Palmeiras and River Plate from South America; Leon, Monterrey, Pachuca and the Seattle Sounders from North America; Al Ahly, Esperance, Mamelodi Sundowns and Wydad from Africa; Al-Hilal, Al Ain, Ulsan and Urawa from Asia; and Auckland City from Oceania.
Inter Miami will be the 31st team in the field. The final will be determined on November 30 during the Conmebol Libertadores final in Buenos Aires. The draw for the tournament is in December.