“We understand that accumulating playing time helps Messi get back into rhythm and that is happening,” coach Tata Martino said at a news conference ahead of Inter Miami’s away game against Toronto FC in Canada.
If they continue to win against Toronto FC, Inter Miami will be closer to the opportunity to break the MLS scoring record after the scoring round. In the remaining match, they will face the New England Revolution at home on October 20 after the FIFA Days match schedule.
Inter Miami currently has 68 points after 32 games. If they win up to 6 more points in the remaining 2 games, they will have 74 points, officially surpassing the New England Revolution team record of 73 points set in 2021.
However, the main objective for Inter Miami and Messi is to win the MLS Cup championship (which has been in play since the end of October). The Argentine player continues to accumulate more playing time to achieve his best performance in the MLS Cup play-off qualifiers. After the match against Toronto FC, Messi will once again focus on the Argentine national team to play the 2026 World Cup Qualifiers in South America against Venezuela and Bolivia on October 11 and 16, respectively.
This is the period in which Messi continues to recover both physically and in form in order to reach the relegation spot in the MLS Cup play-off round. In 5 games since returning from injury, the 37-year-old has played 4 games for 90 minutes and 1 game came off the bench. He has scored 5 goals and provided 1 assist, for a total of 17 goals after 17 games in the MLS tournament.
“This is an incredible performance by Messi, reaching a ratio of 1.07 goals per 90 minutes of play. He also gave 15 assists, with a ratio of 0.95 goals per 90 minutes”, according to the newspaper AS (Spain). In addition, throughout the 2024 MLS campaign, Messi scored or assisted more than 2 goals in every 90 minutes of play.
Messi currently sits fourth on the MLS all-time scoring list with 17 goals, equal with Christian Arango, Daniel Gazdag and Cucho Hernandez, behind only Suarez (18 goals), Denis Bouanga (19 goals) and Christian Benteke leading with 22 goals. The possibility of Messi winning this title is very high, along with the title of best player of the season, having been voted MLS best player of the round 5 times.
“However, it can be seen that Messi’s greatest wish today is to win another championship title for Inter Miami. The MLS Cup championship trophy really has the greatest value and is an affirmation of strength. Therefore, it is no coincidence that Messi spoke right after winning the Supporters’ Shield championship, this is just the first goal, it is time to think about what will happen next,” AS reported.
