Lionel Messi will make his first appearance against the defending MLS champion Columbus Crew on Wednesday night in one of the most highly anticipated regular-season games in recent memory. With a victory on the road, Inter Miami clinches home-field advantage throughout the playoffs and secures the , which is awarded to the MLS team with the best regular-season record. Miami has been atop the MLS standings all season, has lost just four of 31 games and is a virtual lock for the Shield with three games remaining.
But Messi and his teammates would rather not wait. They want to head home from Columbus with the prize in hand and the luxury of knowing all their playoff matches (minus one in the first-round best-of-3 series) will be in the confines of cozy Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale. Although finishing the season with the league’s best record is not the ultimate prize in MLS, as it is in most leagues around the world, Miami’s star-studded team is hungry to add the Shield and MLS Cup to its trophy cabinet, which so far houses just the 2023 Leagues Cup.
“Hopefully, we can clinch, but we have a very difficult game on Wednesday,” said midfielder Sergio Busquets. “It has been our goal all season to win the Supporters’ Shield and then the playoffs. It’s a different format than what we were used to in Europe, but here in the United States it’s like this, so we must adapt.
” Inter Miami coach Tata Martino added: “If this were a 34-game season and the team that gets .