Inter Miami Are Back in the Playoffs, But This Is Not the 2024 Machine

Inter Miami CF are in the 2026 MLS playoffs. Wednesday's 2–0 win over New York City FC at Nu Stadium got them there, Germán Berterame scoring on 20 minutes from a Luis Suárez assist and Rodrigo De Paul doubling the lead on the stroke of half-time after combining with Lionel Messi. Dayne St. Clair saved Nico Fernandez Mercau's late penalty to keep the clean sheet, and Miami moved to second in the Eastern Conference with 52 points from 29 games.

It was, on the surface, a controlled night. Miami had 57 per cent of the ball, 14 shots to NYCFC's 14, six on target to five, and four big chances to one. The expected goals read 2.23 to 1.47. Yet the raw shot count is the interesting part: a side that spent much of the evening ahead on the scoreboard and on the ball did not out-shoot its opponent at all. The separation came in chance quality, not volume — and in the fact that Miami took the two that mattered.

This is where the season-long picture complicates the result. Under Gerardo Martino in 2024, Inter Miami's league record was 22 wins, eight draws and four defeats across 34 games — 2.18 points per game. Under Cristian González in 2026 so far, it is one win, one draw and one defeat from three, 1.33 points per game. That is a three-match sample, far too short to call a trend, and it should be read as a snapshot rather than a verdict. But the direction of travel is worth naming, because the roster has changed around it.

Since the summer, the club has added Casemiro, Rodrigo De Paul, Germán Berterame, Sergio Reguilón, Riquelme Fillipi and Tadeo Allende. Ricardo Montenegro and Benjamín Cremaschi are listed among the significant departures. That is a substantial reworking of a squad in a single window, and it goes some way to explaining why the fluency of the earlier period has not simply carried over. De Paul and Casemiro are not like-for-like replacements for anyone; they change the shape of the midfield and the tempo of the build-up. Berterame's goal against NYCFC was his first since 24 May against the Philadelphia Union — a drought that says as much about service and role as about the striker himself.

There is a more encouraging thread. Miami's expected goals in this match were 2.23, against an average of 1.44 across their earlier 2026 matches in all competitions. Their open-play expected goals here were 2.2, against an average of 1.3. One match is not a trend, but it is the clearest sign yet that the new attacking pieces are beginning to cohere. Messi, who leads the Golden Boot race with 23 goals and tops the assists list with 14, remains the constant around which everything else is arranged.

The wider run of results — 2–2 with Nashville, 2–0 over Cruz Azul in the Campeones Cup, 2–2 with San Diego, a 2–1 defeat at Columbus, 4–0 over DC United, then this — is the record of a team that can be excellent and porous within the same fortnight. Whether that is a settling-in period or something more structural is the question the next matches will answer. The playoff berth is secured; the identity is not.

For New York City FC, the picture is starker. They sit 10th in the East on 33 points from a record of eight wins, 12 defeats and nine draws, three points adrift of the ninth and final playoff spot, and winless in four (0–3–1). With five matches left, the gap is closable but the form is not. They had their moments at Nu Stadium — a penalty, and a save from St. Clair that decided the night — but one big chance against four tells its own story.

Miami, meanwhile, have the playoff place and a squad still learning itself. The 2024 version set a benchmark that this group has not yet matched. The honest position is that three league games under González cannot settle the argument either way. What can be said is that the pieces are arriving, the chance creation is improving, and the balance that made the earlier side so effective has not yet returned.