By James Nalton
Though it’s important to have stayed in touch with the top of the table in MLS, progressing in the Champions Cup will have been the main focus for new head coach Javier Mascherano and his Inter Miami team during this early stage of the season.
Having lost the first leg of the quarterfinal against LAFC 1-0, and having gone a goal down at the beginning of the second leg, Messi stepped up to help his team back into the game, contributing to goals that eventually saw them win 3-1 and book a place in the semis.
His goal to get Miami back in the tie involved a nice bit of linkup play with Luis Suárez and an emphatic finish, before he assisted the equaliser for Noah Allen and went on to win the tie for Miami from the penalty spot.
Messi’s impact in league play this season has not been as headline-grabbing as his first season and a bit for the club, but there have been some steady contributions. His underlying numbers remain very good despite a slightly lower profile of performance so far this year, and he still boasts the highest average FotMob rating of any player in the league.
Suárez has not been as eye-catching this season, either, but it was his expansive cross-field pass that created the opening for Inter Miami to score the goal to win an important game against the Columbus Crew last weekend, and he’s second in the assist charts.
These players can still change games.
It could also be said that Inter Miami’s play on the whole under Mascherano has not been the most spectacular, but they have still managed to pick up wins. They are currently the only unbeaten team in MLS and also have a game in hand on the teams around them in the Supporters’ Shield standings. An additional three points, supposing they won that game in hand, would put them top.
In the league so far this season Miami have only won one game by more than a single goal (a 4-1 win at Houston Dynamo in which Messi didn’t play), but the manner of these hard-fought wins has been encouraging for a team whose aim is to win the MLS Cup — something they failed to do last year.
Inter Miami topped the overall MLS standings to claim the Supporters’ Shield in record-breaking fashion in 2024, but were knocked out in round one of the MLS Cup playoffs in a shock defeat to Atlanta United.
The winner of the MLS Cup, not the Supporters’ Shield, is considered the champions in MLS, so this is undoubtedly the goal for Miami during their Messi era. A team getting over the winning line despite not firing on all cylinders is an encouraging sign when it comes to cup competitions.
A cup competition that is just as important, if not more so than the MLS Cup is the Champions Cup. MLS sides have only won this continental tournament three times in its varied history, and only once in the current format. Inter Miami will have their eye on becoming the next club to do so.
So will their opponents, Vancouver Whitecaps, who would be looking to become the first Canadian winner of the tournament, and are the team currently sitting at the top of MLS’ Supporters’ Shield standings.
While Inter Miami have faced two MLS teams and a Jamaican side (Cavalier) in the Champions Cup so far, the Whitecaps have impressively eliminated two notable Mexican clubs, Monterrey and Pumas UNAM. It’s the first time the Whitecaps have defeated Mexican opposition in this tournament, and they’ve managed to do so twice.
Such an impressive start to the season was not predicted. Having sacked popular head coach Vanni Sartini at the end of 2024, there was some uncertainty going into 2025. This was made even more perilous by the franchise being put up for sale in December.
Despite pre-season worries, new head coach Jesper Sørensen has come in and made the team more difficult to beat while switching to a 4-3-3 formation which also seems to have re-energised their attack.
This is shown by the fact that striker Brian White is just one behind the league’s top scorer Tai Baribo on six, and goalkeeper Yohei Takaoka has the joint-most clean sheets in MLS so far this season. The Whitecaps have conceded the joint-fewest goals in the league (alongside St. Louis and Miami themselves on six) and are the second-highest scorers behind San Jose. There is an ideal combination of things happening at one end of the pitch and things not being allowed to happen at the other.
Inter Miami and Messi will be Vancouver’s biggest test yet. These sides are not due to face each other in the league during the regular season due to being in separate conferences and the way the cross-conference fixtures have panned out this year, but facing each other in such a big competition as arguably the best teams in MLS at this moment in time, is fitting.
Sørensen spoke about Messi shortly after joining the Whitecaps, while also revealing some things about the style of play that would be so successful early in 2025.
“[Possession] is important,” Sørensen, whose team now have the third highest average possession in the league, told The Province. “When you have the ball, you can control the game. When you don’t have the ball, you can affect the game, but you cannot control what’s going to happen.
“In this league, there’s a guy called Messi. You cannot control him when he has the ball, but you can try to affect him.”
Faced with the prospect of coming up against Messi and co, perhaps unexpectedly so, Sørensen stated that his team are here to defeat Miami, not celebrate Messi.
“It’s not Vancouver against Messi, it’s Vancouver against Miami,” he said. “We’re not here to celebrate Messi, we’re here to do whatever we can to see if we can move on, and that should be our task.”
It promises to be the biggest MLS matchup of the season so far, in the region’s biggest tournament.
(Cover Image from IMAGO)
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