Messi and Inter Miami Poised to Capture the MLS Supporters' Shield

There are any number of ways for Lionel Messi and Inter Miami to wrap up the Supporters' Shield and claim the No. 1 overall seed for the MLS Cup playoffs that start later this month.

Here's the easiest one: Win on Wednesday.

Barcelona, featuring Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, Jordi Alba, and Sergio Busquets in its lineup, is on the verge of another trophy as the preseason favorite for the MLS title. In a win Wednesday night at Columbus, they can clinch the Supporters Shield awarded to the team with the best MLS regular-season record.

Inter Miami midfielder Matias Rojas said: "It's a great opportunity for us. We are taking things step by step. This team has built itself one step at a time. So, on Wednesday, we will go to win and achieve that goal."

It would require total collapse over their final three matches for Inter Miami to not go into the playoffs with the No. 1 overall seed, and the Supporters' Shield would be the second trophy in club history following the Leagues Cup title that was won in 2023, not so long after Messi arrived and instantly turned the club into a global phenomenon.

A Miami team the long-defunct Fusion has won the Supporters' Shield before. The Fusion won it in 2001, which became the club's final season because of attendance and revenue problems. Inter Miami has never been close to the top of the MLS table before; it was 19th out of 26 teams in 2020, 20th out of 27 teams in 2021, 12th out of 28 teams in 2022, and 27th out of 29 clubs last season.

This was to be the completely different year it has proven to be. The club opened 3-2-1 in its first six MLS games and has gone 16-2-7 since. Already, by far, this is the best record in club history and a 3-0-0 finish would give Inter Miami the MLS mark for most points in a regular season.

They could finish with 74, one more than New England's 73 in 2021.

"When a team like Inter has 65 points and has lost only four matches all season, and you compare that with teams from previous seasons, we should recognize all the good things we have done this season," Inter Miami coach Gerardo Tata Martino said.

And it's not all Messi.

He has been away for 15 of Inter Miami's MLS games this year because of international commitments to Argentina or because he had to be away from two months following a badly sprained ankle—and all because it occurred at the worst possible time, during his country's Copa America title run in July.

Inter Miami, in MLS play this season, is 9-1-6 with Messi in the lineup. That's probably not a surprise; his teams have been hard to beat for the better part of the last 20 years. This part is the surprise: Inter Miami is 10-3-2 when Messi hasn't played in league matches.

With Messi it averages 2.06 standings points per match of a possible three, without him it's 2.13 standings points. It doesn't add up that this record is better without eight-time Ballon d'Or winner and, by consensus, greatest player ever in the lineup, but there they are.

"That proves that the Inter Miami lineup isn't just Messi and a bunch of other guys," said goalkeeper Drake Callender. "That is, I think, the flexibility of our team. We acquired depth during the season because a lot of those guys didn't have much playing time at the beginning of the year. But they get more experience now, we have more options and have more options for how to play. So, I think we're in good shape heading into next season."

If the clinch, which brings home-field advantage throughout the entire MLS Cup playoffs, all the way to the final, doesn't come on Wednesday, Inter Miami's final two regular-season matches are at Toronto on Saturday and then at home against New England on Oct. 19. Inter Miami's playoff run will start at home on the final weekend of October.

"The first priority is the championship title for the playoffs, the MLS Cup. But the number of the seed also makes some difference," Alba said. "We would like to beat a very tough team like Columbus and be a winning team in our approach to it. A win in Supporters' Shield would be a beautiful addition to the club's history, but in the end, what we want to win is MLS Cup."