No Messi, no problem: Inter Miami continue championship push without talisman

IIn a game that had already seen two goals and a red card, it was a goalless goal kick in the 76th minute that made clear what Inter Miami plans to do with the remainder of the 2024 MLS season.

Miami hosted fellow Eastern Conference contenders FC Cincinnati at Chase Stadium and quickly took a two-goal lead thanks to a brace from Luis Suárez. Tata Martino’s team twice capitalized on careless turnovers from the visitors in the first six minutes, and the veteran Uruguayan striker scored mercilessly in the penalty area on two occasions.

But as half-time approached, 20-year-old central defender Tomás Avilés proved to be inexperienced, receiving his second yellow card for a reckless foul in midfield that was worthy of a straight red card.

Miami were without the injured Lionel Messi for the eighth consecutive MLS match. Against the reigning Supports’ Shield champions and, following the addition of MVP candidate Luciano Acosta during the mid-season break, 10-man Inter might have collapsed, facing one of the few attacking units in MLS that can match their creativity and firepower. But the action from another defender in pink epitomized their determination to hang on.

Paraguayan centre-back David Martínez made his MLS debut after arriving on loan from River Plate in July. Despite being a new signing, the 26-year-old showed he was reading from the same playbook as his new colleagues, who had been tirelessly pushing to shut down Cincy players in possession, when he ran back to clear a shot from inside the box.

Martínez’s intervention helped Miami keep a clean sheet and three points, securing a playoff spot. But they also achieved much more than that.

Due to a combination of international commitments and an ankle injury sustained during the Copa América final in Argentina against Colombia, Miami have been without Messi since June 2. Of the eight MLS games Messi has missed in that time, Inter have now won seven. They have found a way to win without their most talented and important player.

The only game Inter lost during that period was an embarrassing 6-1 defeat to Cincinnati last month, with Suarez and Jordi Alba both absent, while Sergio Busquets, who played in a different position as a centre-back, was sent off.

With Suárez and Alba back in the starting line-up for the return leg, and Busquets, albeit still in defence, holding on for the full 90 minutes, Miami took revenge by opening a six-point lead over the East’s second-place finisher.

The win cemented Inter’s status as top scorers for the Supporters Shield and kept alive the prospect of a record regular-season points haul. Currently on 56 points with eight games remaining, the current MLS record of 73 points – set by the New England Revolution in 2021 – is within reach. If they maintain their current league-best average of 2.15 points per game, Martino’s men will equal that tally.

And it bodes ill for the rest of the competition that Messi, according to Martino, is on the verge of returning.

“Leo, as I said the other day, I can’t tell you exactly what time, but he’s already on the pitch,” the Inter coach said after the win in Cincinnati. “He’s working with his physio, he’s out of the medical department, he’s training with a ball. He has to get back in shape or get most of his fitness back, which is what every player loses when he’s out for five or six weeks, and he has to be confident that his injury is behind him. But I think it’s not far away.”

That doesn’t mean Miami will have a straightforward path to an MLS Cup title, though. The Eastern Conference is stacked, with Cincinnati and the Columbus Crew poised to take down the current Eastern leaders.

Columbus, the reigning MLS Cup champions, have won five of their last seven MLS games and were crowned Leagues Cup champions during the midseason break. In Cucho Hernández, who has 15 goals and eight assists in 22 all-competitions appearances this year, the Crew boast the most in-form player in American soccer right now, while Wilfried Nancy is on a very short list of the league’s most innovative coaches.

In the West, Conference leaders Los Angeles Galaxy have just added former Germany and Borussia Dortmund icon Marco Reus, who scored and assisted on his MLS debut over the weekend. And LAFC, last year’s MLS Cup runners-up, have added World Cup-winning target man Olivier Giroud to a fearsome attack that already includes last season’s Golden Boot winner Denis Bouanga, who has 22 goals and 14 assists in 33 games this season.

“Obviously our goals are super high and our standards are super high,” said Inter Miami goalkeeper Drake Callender, who played superbly against Cincinnati. “We want to win – we want to win the Eastern Conference, we want to win the MLS Cup.”

And winger Diego Gómez agreed that the Herons’ ambitions extend far beyond just making the postseason. “We’ve accomplished our first goal, which is to make the playoffs,” he said. “We have to keep going, we have to keep training, we have to keep improving.”

The players’ words after the match only underscored what the team’s performance had already made clear: After a disappointing Concacaf Champions Cup campaign and a Leagues Cup defense that fell short in the round of 16, it’s a matter of winning or losing the MLS Cup for Inter Miami.