FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Lionel Messi and Inter Miami have put together the best regular season in Major League Soccer history.
Messi had three goals and an assist in the second half alone, Luis Suarez had a pair of first-half goals and Inter Miami beat the New England Revolution 6-2 on Saturday night, finishing the season with an MLS-record 74 points — one more than the Revolution had in 2021.
It was Messi's first hat trick for Inter Miami, the team the Argentine superstar joined midway through the 2023 season in a huge victory for Major League Soccer.
At 22-4-8 in league play, Inter Miami finished the season with a .765 winning percentage for another MLS record. There were four teams — D.C. United (24-8) and the LA Galaxy (24-8) in 1998, LAFC (21-4-9) in 2019 and New England (22-5-7) in 2021 — that finished an MLS season with a .750 winning percentage, which was the top spot until Saturday night.
Now, the top spot is Inter Miami's by any measure, both in terms of points and best won-lost-tied mark. Inter Miami also became the eighth team in MLS history to get through a regular season with only four losses, tying another record.
Messi — who played about 35 minutes and still scored three times Saturday — finished the regular season with 20 goals and 16 assists in 19 matches.
Suarez got to 20 goals in his first MLS season, his strikes — coming about three minutes apart — helping Inter Miami erase an early 2-0 deficit. Luca Langoni and Dylan Borrero had the goals for New England.
The rest of the match was all Miami. The team had a stage pulled onto the field after the match to recognize the Supporters Shield win, which the team claimed on the road earlier this month, and fired pink confetti into the air when time expired.
Suarez's brace pulled the hosts into a tie by halftime and Benja Cremaschi scored the go-ahead goal in the 58th minute. Messi had an assist on Cremaschi’s goal, one that came just seconds after the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner subbed into the match.
There had been some question about whether Messi would play at all, especially since Inter Miami had already wrapped up the Supporters' Shield and No. 1 seed in the MLS Cup playoffs. All that was at stake for Inter Miami on Saturday was the record.
And there was a scare in the 74th minute when Messi was fouled, yelled in pain and grabbed at his right ankle as he was on the ground. He’s missed 15 of Inter Miami’s MLS matches in 2024, either because of commitments to Argentina’s national team or the two-month absence that he needed to recover from a badly injured ankle — an injury that happened during his nation’s run to the Copa America title in July.
It was just a scare.
Messi scored about two minutes apart in the second half, turning a 3-2 lead into a 5-2 rout and it was only a matter of time before the record would belong to Inter Miami. And the capper came in the 89th minute, Suarez flipping the ball to Messi for an easy score that finished off the hat trick.
Next up for Inter Miami: Game 1 of a best-of-three first-round series, at home Friday night. It will be the first home playoff match in club history.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Tim Reynolds, The Associated Press
