What a difference a year makes for Inter Miami CF.
At this point in their 2023 campaign, the Herons hoisted the Leagues Cup trophy skyward in Nashville, celebrating the club’s first-ever silverware via Lionel Messi’s transcendent heroics upon arrival in South Florida as a global audience watched raptly.
Yet for all the euphoria inspired by that tournament run, Miami were very much a work in progress, a far cry from a fully formed collective, and their ensuing struggles down the stretch in league play proved it. As those first delirious weeks of the Messi effect wore off, IMCF’s hopes of a monumental late charge into the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs faded to black as the team went 4W-4L-4D down the stretch.
Playoffs secured
Fast-forward back to the present: Miami just beat reigning Supporters’ Shield holders FC Cincinnati, 2-0, at Chase Stadium. Luis Suárez bagged a rapid-fire brace in the game’s first six minutes to clinch playoff qualification, taking his side four points clear atop this year’s Shield race with eight weeks left in the regular season.
Even an early ejection couldn’t slow Miami down. Cincy couldn't close the gap despite playing more than half the match with a numerical advantage thanks to Tomás Avilés’ second red card of the year, as their hosts managed the situation superbly with a few tactical tweaks and some astute marshaling from veterans Suárez, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba.
“We didn't suffer very much,” said coach Gerardo 'Tata' Martino in Spanish afterwards, hailing his team’s “organization, commitment, sticking to our style of play, because staying organized was crucial to closing out the game … the order of the team meant that we didn't risk the match.”
Messi nears return
Most impressively, the Herons have accomplished all this with Messi absent for nearly three months. Due to international duty and injury, the Argentine GOAT hasn’t played for his club since June 1, missing eight league matches – and Miami won seven of them, crafting a much sturdier collective and plumbing the squad's lower reaches to gain key contributions from youngsters and role players.
As strong as Messi's gravitational pull remains, both on and off the pitch, this team has learned how to win without their talisman. It’s a tribute to both Martino’s work and a far more balanced roster, overhauled on the fly by chief soccer officer and sporting director Chris Henderson.
All of this makes Messi’s impending return that much more exciting for IMCF and their supporters – and conversely, ominous for the rest of MLS.
“Leo, like I said the other day, I can't tell you exactly what time, but he's already on the field. He is working with his physical therapist, he's out of the medical ward, he is training with a ball,” said Martino postgame.
“So he has to get back in shape or recover most of his fitness that any player loses when they are out for five or six weeks, and to feel confident that his injury is behind him. But it is something that I believe is not very far from happening.”
Chasing history
IMCF are the only team in MLS averaging more than two points per game (2.15), giving them a decent chance of breaking the single-season points record (73) set by New England in 2021. And with Cincy dispatched in such a manner, the list of adversaries who could conceivably catch them is shrinking fast – at this point probably only LAFC and the Columbus Crew can realistically hope to make a push thanks to each holding multiple games in hand, though FCC and the LA Galaxy also retain an outside shot.
“Of course, our goals are set super high and our standards are set super high. We want to win – we want to win the Eastern Conference, we want to win MLS Cup,” said Herons goalkeeper Drake Callender after another quietly impressive shot-stopping display.
Added midfielder Diego Gómez: "We achieved our first objective, which is to make it to the playoffs. We have to keep going, we still have to keep training, we have to keep improving."
Recharged
Even the 3-2 semifinal loss at Columbus that ended Miami's Leagues Cup title defense has brought benefits, according to Martino, who sounded uninclined to ease off the proverbial gas pedal in order to rest and rotate players in the season’s final weeks.
“What we have to do is continue to maintain our performance,” Martino said. “We don't want to try to modify the way in which the team is facing each of the matches because we're at the final stretch, and then have to review how to play the last few games before the playoffs, because they're completely different situations.
"But like I said yesterday in the press conference before the match, I believe that we're strengthened by the Columbus game without doubt. What happened today shows it.”
