03 March 2024 , 12:15
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Lionel Messi sent an ominous warning to the rest of Major League Soccer following an emphatic victory for Inter Miami.
The Eastern Conference team maintained their unbeaten start to the MLS season after thrashing Orlando City 5-0 in the Florida derby. Luis Suarez scored his first two league goals for the club inside the first ten minutes of the game, while a Messi brace and a strike from Robert Taylor completed the rout.
Post-game the World Cup winner stressed the worrying 'reality' for other teams that if he and Suarez are playing well together, they will be very difficult to stop. “We are good, we are enjoying, we are growing,” Messi told Apple TV+. “Today was an important game to win to continue on that path of growth and the truth is that this has to make us very strong for everything that is to come.
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“Without putting weight on our shoulders, we are aware of the team we put together and we prepare to try to fight for the MLS. We know that it is a long road and that this is just beginning, but the reality is that we know what we have to do.”
In December Suarez joined Miami from Gremio in December and reunited with Messi and other former Barcelona teammates Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba. The club has continued to strengthen ever since the eight-time Balon d’Or winner’s shock arrival in the summer of 2023.
They now have plenty of experience in their ranks courtesy of the Barcelona quartet and their teammates have stepped up their game as they bid for a successful league campaign. They have seven points from their first three games and Suarez has played a key role, which is something Messi expects to continue.
“I'm very happy for him and that he was able to convert,” he added. “Maybe we were calm: we know what Luis is and what he is capable of doing. All people know it. It's like that, when you least expect it, he solves a game for you like he did today.”
Messi now has three goals in three league games for Inter Miami this season (CHRIS ARJOON/AFP via Getty Images)Suarez, not only bagged a brace courtesy of two Julian Gressel passes, but he also assisted Taylor’s goal and Messi’s second of the game. Miami are top of the Eastern Conference after three games and they are full of confidence heading into their next match. This will take place against Nashville in the CONCACAF Champions Cup in the early hours of Friday morning.
In what is set to be a jam-packed month for the team, boss Tata Martino is conscious of managing Messi’s workload. "What worries me most today is the day-to-day life and how he is recovering game by game," he told reporters this past Friday.
"I feel that in these first two games we have resorted to him in each game in an exaggerated way and that it has caused him significant wear and tear. I feel that he has had too much wear and tear in these two games, and That is also my responsibility to make the team work in such a way that we can use it in a diverse way."