Much about Tuesday night in Fort Lauderdale was typical. The weather was sticky and humid. The crowd at Chase Stadium was lively. And on the field, Lionel Messi assisted Jordi Alba, and vice-versa, in a 3-1 win for Inter Miami. That the victory came against the Seattle Sounders, the side that beat Miami in a contentious Leagues Cup final two weeks ago, gave the squad a measure of revenge. But there are bigger factors at play.
“It was important to regain positive feelings,” Miami head coach Javier Mascherano told reporters afterward.
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Indeed, between the Seattle game and a subsequent loss to Charlotte FC, Miami had not just suffered two consecutive shutout losses, but they were depleted due to injuries and suspensions (Luis Suárez due to his antics in the Leagues Cup final and Tomas Avilés for a red card against Charlotte). Inter Miami only had six players on the bench on Tuesday; two were 18-year-old academy products and another was 19-year-old Mateo Silvetti, who just arrived from Newell’s Old Boys.
Despite this, Miami’s win pushed them to fifth in the Eastern Conference on 49 points – eight behind the leaders, Philadelphia Union. With three games in hand, Inter Miami still have a chance at repeating last season’s achievement: finishing at the top of the East and winning the MLS Supporters’ Shield, given to the club with the best regular-season record.
The ultimate goal, though, is altogether different: win MLS Cup.
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The league championship has been the most coveted objective for the Herons. There is an argument that winning the Concacaf Champions Cup is perhaps more prestigious due to its continental scale, or that the Shield is the trophy that most resembles league titles in most other competitions worldwide. But MLS Cup is the trophy that matters to the most important people: the fans. From Atlanta United’s tremendous victory in 2018 with Miguel Almirón and Josef Martínez to Carlos Vela, Gareth Bale and the Mexican-American euphoria with LAFC in 2022, and even going back to DC United’s inaugural victory in 1996, winning MLS Cup is an achievement that permeates across a club’s community and history.
Naturally, every MLS team wants that title. The difference with Inter Miami is that the stakes are so much higher simply because they have Messi. With 46 trophies to his name, no one in the game has more silverware, and the pressure for him to win MLS Cup is less on him and more on the club as a whole to deliver a championship to add to that list.
Because of his arrival and everything that has occurred since, Inter Miami are one of the biggest marketing attractions in the league, second in value to LAFC, per Forbes. According to research firm SponsorUnited, subscriptions to MLS’s Season Pass broadcast package on Apple TV more than doubled since Messi came to the league, and sponsorship revenue jumped 13% last year to $665m. Other clubs have also benefited. Sporting Kansas City, for example, hosted Inter Miami at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium in 2024, drawing a club record crowd of 72,610. In addition, Inter Miami’s new stadium, Miami Freedom Park, is set to open next year and there is hope that Messi will still be around to lead them into their new home.
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“I previously said that my wish, my dream would be for the No 10 to inaugurate our new stadium in March,” Inter Miami owner Jorge Mas told ESPN this summer. “This is a decision that rests on Messi. We wish for Messi to finish his career here.”
Yet at the time of writing, there has been no official word regarding the extension. The prospect of opening the stadium as MLS Cup champions will no doubt be enticing to Messi, though. He faced a similar dynamic after finally capturing the 2022 World Cup, when he could have retired from the national team at 34 years old but chose to continue playing with his country so he could do so as a world champion.
Inter Miami have achieved much in the Messi era, including a points record in a Supporters’ Shield season in 2024 and a run to the round of 16 in the Club World Cup, which featured a 2-1 victory over FC Porto, making them the first Concacaf team to beat a Uefa side in official competition.
MLS Cup, though, is an entirely different type of competition – the capstone to playoffs that are a season unto themselves, where results from the regular season don’t mean much aside from determining the matchups. Miami know this as well as anyone, having lost in the first round last year in one of the most shocking upsets in league history.
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This time around, Mascherano will know that Messi, now 38, is close to the end of his career. The need to win with Inter Miami is becoming urgent. And some things will need to improve.
To maximize their chances of success, Miami must deliver a more consistent tone, both in the playing of the game and the mentality with which they approach it. Suárez’s conduct in the Leagues Cup final doesn’t help things, and he’s not the only one who has had disciplinary issues. Out of 30 clubs, Inter Miami are ninth in the disciplinary standings but with far fewer matches played. Mascherano manages as he used to play – aggressively – and that can be both a strength and a weakness.
There’s little doubt that Inter Miami will make the playoffs, and there’s also a chance that the club can top the East again as their remaining matches – aside from Nashville SC on the final day of the season – are against teams in lower positions.
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But that’s not the goal. The Philadelphia Union, FC Cincinnati, Charlotte FC and Florida rivals Orlando City are among the teams standing in Miami’s way in the East playoffs. All except Philly have beaten the Herons this season, and all are capable of doing so again (and that’s before getting into a potential final matchup against high-flying San Diego FC, Son Heung-min’s LAFC, the tactically clever Minnesota United, history-making Vancouver Whitecaps, a rematch against the Seattle Sounders, or whoever else comes out of the West).
The road to MLS Cup is realistic and achievable for Inter Miami, but it comes with numerous obstacles.
