Messi Scores Twice in First Game Since Argentina Farewell, Inter Miami Moves Into Second

Lionel Messi scored twice in his first match since playing his final game for Argentina, and Luis Suárez matched him goal for goal, as Inter Miami blew out D.C. United 4-0 on Saturday night at Nu Stadium. The result snapped a five-match winless run at the worst possible time to be stuck in one — with the regular season closing out and playoff positioning still very much in flux.

Messi was playing his first club game since his emotional final match for Argentina in midweek. He didn’t look like a player working through jet lag or emotional hangover. His second goal came in the 60th minute, when he controlled a back-heel from Rodrigo De Paul, jinked past D.C. United’s Lucas Bartlett, and fired the ball just inside the far post. Suárez provided the mirror image on the other end of the stat sheet, scoring twice himself while also setting up one of Messi’s goals.

A Five-Game Skid, Snapped

Before Saturday, Inter Miami had gone winless in five straight league matches — four draws and a loss — a stretch that threatened to undo months of good position-building in the Eastern Conference table. The skid included a 1-2 defeat at Columbus in late September that dropped Miami out of the conference’s top two. This one wasn’t close. The win moved Inter Miami to second place in the Eastern Conference, one point ahead of the Chicago Fire, with German Berterame adding two assists and Sergio Reguilón and De Paul each contributing one.

Coach Kily Gonzalez had seen enough of the stalemates. “We had to win again, and we did it convincingly,” he said afterward, clearly satisfied with the performance. It’s hard to argue with a four-goal shutout against a conference opponent, even one as limited as D.C. United currently is.

That’s the other half of this result. D.C. United fell further out of the playoff picture and are now six points behind FC Cincinnati for the conference’s final post-season play-in berth. Miami didn’t just help itself Saturday — it buried a rival that was already fading.

The Stretch Run Gets Harder

The timing of this result matters more than the scoreline suggests. Miami’s remaining schedule is loaded with direct competitors for playoff seeding: a home match against New York City FC, a road trip to Atlanta United, and a trip to face the New York Red Bulls before the regular season wraps on November 7. Every one of those teams is fighting for position in a crowded middle of the Eastern Conference table, and Miami’s recent form before Saturday — all those draws — had been exactly the kind of result that lets rivals close the gap instead of falling away.

Messi’s health and availability remain the variable that decides how far this team goes. He played every minute of international qualifying and friendlies through his Argentina farewell, then turned around and delivered a two-goal performance days later. He recently extended his contract with Inter Miami through the 2028 MLS season, so this isn’t a farewell tour — it’s a player settling into a long-term arrangement with the only non-European club he’s ever represented, and doing it by producing exactly when his team needed a result.

The Suárez pairing is the other story here. Both forwards scoring twice in the same match, with Messi assisting on one of Suárez’s and De Paul and Berterame combining for three more assists, is the kind of offensive balance that made Miami dangerous in its title run a year ago. A five-match stretch without a win had started to raise real questions about whether that version of the team still existed. One night against a bad opponent doesn’t answer that for good, but it’s the first data point in weeks that points in the right direction, and it came at the exact moment the schedule stopped giving Miami any room for more draws.