Preview: Inter Miami look to continue post-Club World Cup bounce against Nashville
It’s a battle between two of the in-form attackers in Major League Soccer as Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami take on Sam Surridge’s Nashville SC on Saturday night.
By James Nalton
Javier Mascherano’s side are looking to recover ground on the teams ahead of them in the MLS standings following the Club World Cup, and here they have a chance to take points off the one sitting in second place.
Internacional Miami
The Club World Cup has been and gone, for MLS at least, but the international football experience on home soil seems to have given Inter Miami an extra swagger on their return to regular season MLS matches.
When you’ve just beaten Porto and tested yourselves against Paris Saint-Germain, returning to MLS could either be a chore or a chance to show why you were at the Club World Cup in the first place.
Inter Miami have gone down the latter route, following up a 4-1 thrashing of Montréal with a 2-1 win against New England Revolution.
As is often the case in Miami games, the opponents put up good numbers, and the xG suggests the Revolution might have won their recent meeting, but Messi happened.
More Messi records
Messi scored both his side’s goals in New England, adding to the two he scored against Montréal.
From the three games immediately prior to the Club World Cup and the two immediately after, Messi has nine goals and four assists.
His brace against New England followed two-goal hauls against Montréal, Columbus Crew, and Montréal again, and made him the first player in MLS history to score multiple goals in four straight regular-season games.
You wouldn’t bet against him making it five.
The Surridge effect
Not all of the players joining MLS from Europe are high-profile names who create a stir back home on moving to, or indeed playing in, MLS.
Very few of them, though, regardless of profile, have been as successful as Sam Surridge has become this season in Nashville.
Having moved to MLS from Nottingham Forest in the summer of 2023, Surridge’s first season and a half were steady and more than respectable, yielding 20 goals in 47 games in all competitions.
In 2025, though, Surridge has been the most prolific striker in the league, scoring 18 goals in 22 games across MLS and the US Open Cup.
While Messi is making the headlines once again, and making a late push to retain his MVP title from 2024, it is Surridge who tops the MLS goalscoring charts, two ahead of Messi.
Surridge’s tally does include five penalty kicks, but two goals in the Open Cup quarter-final win against DC United on Wednesday take him to 12 goals in his last eight games in all competitions.
There are few more in-form players in the league than Messi and Surridge, while Nashville still have a former MVP of their own in Hany Mukhtar, who could also cause Miami problems.
Prediction
If this were in Tennessee, you might fancy Nashville, but at home in Fort Lauderdale, the Herons should do enough to get a draw, with goals for both sides, as is almost always the case in games involving Inter Miami.
(Cover Image from IMAGO)
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