Inter Miami playoffs tracker: Can Messi lead the MLS side to the postseason?

What once appeared to be a gargantuan task has now become easy to envision: Inter Miami is back in contention for the MLS Cup Playoffs.

At the time of Lionel Messi’s signing on July 6, Miami was at the bottom of the Eastern Conference with 17 points from 20 games. Only the Colorado Rapids had suffered a worse start to the 2023 season. Since then, Miami swiftly began its climb toward postseason qualification on the backs of Messi, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba and a trio of young South American players (plus an experienced manager in Tata Martino).

In the league’s current playoff format, seven teams in each conference (Eastern and Western) automatically qualify for the first round while the eighth and ninth-ranked sides from each conference take part in a play-in match to finalize the bracket.

This tracker will be updated after every Inter Miami game

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How close is Miami to making the playoffs?

With seven games remaining, Miami is still far from crashing the field. Messi took this past weekend off to watch his son’s academy game and divide the internet by ordering a tomato pie, while his teammates endured a 5-2 drubbing at Atlanta United. With at least one game in hand on most of the sides ahead of them, however, they’re poised to overtake more conference rivals should their impressive form persist.

 

With the season now into its final quarter, it will likely take 43 points to secure a spot in the play-in match. To avoid the one-off contest altogether, MLS teams will likely need to accrue 48 points. Needless to say, Miami’s misfortune under Phil Neville left the newly formed superteam with plenty of work to do.

How does the rest of the East look?

As of September 17, FC Cincinnati has clinched a playoff spot, as the first team to do so in the East (and, it should be noted, across all of MLS). New England (despite all of its turmoil these days), Orlando, Philadelphia and Columbus would all require historic collapses to fall out of the top 9 places entirely. That leaves four spots likely up for grabs across the nine sides with a realistic chance of accruing 43 points with a strong homestretch showing.

 

Although Miami lost on Saturday, the consolation is that every team between Atlanta and them in the table either left the weekend with a single point or, in Nashville’s case, had the weekend off altogether. As such, Miami’s playoff prospects are arguably in the exact same place they were before Saturday’s action. Miami trails ninth place D.C. United by seven points while holding two games in hand.

Who does Miami play next?

Miami’s next game is on Wednesday at home against Toronto FC – the one team in the East which is below them in the table. Toronto FC had both hands on the trophy for MLS’s most tumultuous season before the meltdown in New England. At its heart was an at-times toxic relationship between star attackers Lorenzo Insigne and Federico Bernardeschi, as the Italian duo had a dynamic fraught with jealousy and incohesion.

Bob Bradley was dismissed as manager on June 26, with the team having drawn 10 of its first 17 games. They’ve performed even worse since the former United States head coach left, losing their next six games in a row before bucking the trend with a win over Philadelphia in their last match. They have little left to achieve this season, which could allow them to relish in playing the spoiler for the rest of the conference before John Herdman takes over on October 1.

Toronto was one of the few Eastern Conference sides to play against a Western foe over the weekend, and took an initial lead over a fellow Canadian club, the Vancouver Whitecaps. However, Vancouver pulled two goals back to give Toronto its seventh defeat in eight games since dismissing Bradley, ensuring they’ve made up no ground on Miami and the rest of the conference. Simply put, it’s the most favorable matchup remaining on the Herons’ slate.

 

Other relevant games of interest

Wednesday’s slate has a lot of the teams in playoff contention playing rivals further up the table. Montréal (8th in the East, 36 points) hosts top-ranking FC Cincinnati, while Charlotte FC (11th, 32) hosts defending conference champion Philadelphia. Chicago (10th, 33) hosts free-flying Columbus, and D.C. (9th, 35) catches Atlanta fresh off their thrashing of Miami. New York City (12th, 31) and New York Red Bulls (13th, 30) will look to rebound from a bleak scoreless draw in their rivalry clash at home against Orlando and Austin, respectively.

Each of these games kicks off at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time on Apple TV’s MLS Season Pass.

What about the West?

For those of you following the league outside of Messi’s exploits, here’s the lay of the land in the Western Conference.

(Photo: Harry How/Getty Images)