Messi Just Scored His 101st Goal for Inter Miami. His Team Still Can't Win.

Lionel Messi curled in a free kick from the right side Sunday night, his 101st goal in an Inter Miami shirt, and it still wasn’t enough to win the game. San Diego FC answered twice, the second time in the final ten minutes, and Inter Miami’s 2-2 draw at Nu Stadium marked its fourth consecutive tie in MLS play. It was also new head coach Cristian “Kily” González’s first game in charge in the league — and it ended with him talking about defensive breakdowns instead of celebrating a result.

Messi scored his 101st goal for Inter Miami, canceling out an early opener from Anders Dreyer, who had capitalized on a through ball before chipping the goalkeeper in the 12th minute. Messi’s response came in the 24th minute, his 20th league goal of the season, arriving four days after he’d scored his 100th goal for the club in a Campeones Cup win over Cruz Azul. Luis Suárez put Miami ahead in the 74th minute, looking like the moment that would finally end the winless streak. Then Dreyer completed his brace late on, ensuring the spoils were shared again.

The Coach Says the Quiet Part Out Loud

González didn’t hide his frustration afterward. “We’ve been here for four days and haven’t been able to train properly. Defensively, we really need to be much stronger,” he said. “We can’t commit these defensive horrors, they come at a high cost. That final situation shouldn’t have happened. It’s surreal to be in a position to win the game, yet nearly lose it. We only avoided defeat because our goalkeeper saved us.”

That’s a blunt assessment from a coach four days into the job. González took over as permanent head coach on September 15, replacing interim boss Guillermo Hoyos, who had run things since Javier Mascherano’s exit in April. His first game in any competition was a trophy-winning 2-0 victory over Cruz Azul in the Campeones Cup final, with Messi and Casemiro doing the scoring. His first league game produced a much shakier picture: a team that can still create at will but keeps handing points back.

This wasn’t an isolated slip. The draw against San Diego extended a stretch that includes ties against Atlanta United, Chicago Fire, and Nashville SC — the last of those a particularly costly one, a 2-2 result in which Miami surrendered a stoppage-time equalizer after Messi had put them ahead. Four games, four failures to close things out, spanning the transition from Hoyos to González.

Messi Keeps Producing. The Standings Don’t Care.

None of this is about Messi’s individual level. He’s putting up numbers that would be the story of the season for almost any other player in the league — 20 league goals, in the mix for both the scoring and assist titles, still scoring free kicks at 38 years old like it’s routine. The problem is that Inter Miami’s results have decoupled from his production. The team has gone from comfortably second in the East to watching the gap behind Nashville widen even as its best player keeps delivering.

The draw left Miami sitting third in the Eastern Conference, 11 points behind leaders Nashville — a considerable margin with the regular season entering its final stretch. Reaching that gap matters for seeding heading into the playoffs, not just for the Supporters’ Shield conversation that was still alive a month ago. A team built around Messi, Suárez, Rodrigo De Paul, and Casemiro shouldn’t be leaking points against a rebuilding San Diego side or conceding stoppage-time equalizers to Nashville. That’s not a talent problem. It’s the kind of soft, correctable failure — set-piece marking, late-game concentration — that a new coach either fixes quickly or watches compound.

González inherited a roster that’s still one of the most talented in MLS and immediately proved he can win a trophy with it. What he hasn’t shown yet is that he can stop it from giving games away. With the playoffs approaching and Nashville showing no signs of slowing down, four straight draws isn’t a rough patch anymore. It’s a pattern, and it’s now his to break.