Inter Miami Can't Win the Games That Matter. Wednesday Is a Different Kind of Test.

Inter Miami has not lost a game since Kily González took the bench. It also hasn’t won one that mattered.

The Herons played to a 2-2 draw with Nashville SC on Saturday night at Nu Stadium, a result that brought together the top two teams in Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference and, for Miami, amounted to another painful late collapse. Casemiro was caught upfield in the third minute and Nashville forward Sam Surridge raced past him and calmly slotted the ball into the net. Lionel Messi eventually pulled Miami level, scoring what ESPN logged as his MLS-leading 19th goal of the season — but Nashville answered again in stoppage time, and the two points Miami needed slipped away for a third straight match.

That’s the pattern now. Four days earlier, at Soldier Field, Miami fell behind to a Robert Lewandowski header and needed a Messi-assisted Casemiro goal just to escape Chicago with a point in a 1-1 draw. A week before that, at home against Atlanta United, Miami led twice and still finished level, with Atlanta equalizing on a penalty scored by Breel Embolo in the 87th minute. Three games since the coaching change, three draws, zero wins, and a growing gap at the top of the conference.

A coach still finding his footing

González’s appointment was, by any measure, an unusual bet. Miami hired him in late August during a five-match winless run, and it took weeks before he could even reach the touchline — Gonzalez had yet to receive the work permit required to legally coach in the United States, with the club stating he would only officially assume his duties once that documentation cleared. Guillermo Hoyos, the interim who’d been in charge since Javier Mascherano’s resignation in April, kept running the team in the meantime, including through a one-match suspension for delayed kickoffs.

González is now formally in charge, and the results have at least stopped the bleeding — Miami hasn’t lost since he arrived. But three consecutive draws against direct Eastern Conference competition isn’t the turnaround the front office presumably had in mind when it fired a coach who was, by the numbers, still performing well. Hoyos had opened his tenure with a run good enough that the club itself called it the most successful start by any coach in its history, before form cooled in the summer.

The bigger problem is the standings. Entering the Nashville match, Miami sat nine points behind Nashville, which led the Eastern Conference and Supporters’ Shield race with 53 points from 24 matches. A draw does nothing to close that gap. With the regular season winding down, Miami’s path to the Supporters’ Shield — and likely a better playoff seed — is narrowing fast against a Nashville team that, per one recap, is playing the best season in franchise history, with its 54 points tying a club record.

A trophy is still on the table Wednesday

None of that history matters this week. On Wednesday, Miami hosts Cruz Azul at Nu Stadium in the Campeones Cup, the one-off final between MLS’s reigning champion and Liga MX’s reigning champion. It’s the first time Inter Miami has hosted a competitive final at its new stadium, and it’s the first trophy chance of González’s brief tenure.

Cruz Azul arrives as a heavyweight. The Mexican club won the Clausura title with a 2-1 victory over Pumas and, per LIGA MX figures cited by the league, held the best overall record in Mexican soccer during the 2025-26 season, winning 30 of 34 matches, on its way to a 10th league title. It’s Cruz Azul’s first appearance in this competition in six years, after losing the 2020 edition to Columbus Crew.

For Miami, the value of Wednesday’s game isn’t really about erasing the draws. It’s about proving González’s team can still close out a game that’s in front of it, on a stage with actual stakes attached. Messi’s individual numbers remain absurd no matter what happens around him — he’s been shortlisted among the nominees for this year’s Ballon d’Or, a reminder that the disappointment in the standings hasn’t come from any drop-off at the top of the roster. What’s missing is the finishing touch as a team, in the moments that decide whether a season is remembered as a title defense or a near-miss.

A trophy on Wednesday wouldn’t fix the nine-point deficit in the East. But it would be the first sign that this version of Inter Miami can win an game that actually counts, rather than just avoid losing one.