Inter Miami beat Atlanta United 2-1 at home in Game 1 of the MLS playoffs to go one step closer to the conference championship.
The victory puts Miami up 1-0 in its best-of-three series against the Five Stripes.
Atlanta entered this match with everything going against it: the team arrived in Florida after a brutal week of qualifying, playing one match in Orlando and one in Montreal before traveling back down to Fort Lauderdale to face Miami for six days.
Things didn’t improve for Atlanta in the opening minutes. It conceded a goal to Miami in the first ninety seconds when Luis Suarez poked a ball through its scrambled defense, then lost two players to injury in quick succession.
By the time the 30th minute rolled around Atlanta was down one goal, two players and two substitutions, and it looked utterly exhausted.
Slowly, though, Atlanta found its way back into the game. After struggling to break through Miami’s excellent right-sided defender David Martinez, Atlanta started sending quick balls the other way, catching left-sided defender Marcelo Weigandt off guard.
Nine minutes later, Saba Lobzhanidze — the man who scored three goals against Miami over the course of 2024 — found the breakthrough. He caught onto a gorgeous pass from left-back Pedro Amador and slotted a surgical shot into the Miami goal. Against all odds, Atlanta was level.
Miami reasserted its dominance in the second half, pushing Atlanta’s tired midfielders to their breaking points and firing shot after shot at goalkeeper Brad Guzan. But Guzan — a veteran MLS keeper who won the Cup with Atlanta in 2018 — had the game of his life and kept Miami at bay.
When the breakthrough finally came, it was from a virtually unstoppable Jordi Alba rocket. Without Guzan’s help, Atlanta could’ve easily lost by five or six goals.
Miami will take plenty of positives from this victory, but it will be wary of how Atlanta marked Lionel Messi out of the game. He was unable to find his footing throughout the 90 minutes and it wasn’t by accident; Atlanta was specific and targeted the way it blocked his play.
Without Messi’s creativity outside of the penalty box, Miami struggled to make chances. There’s no doubt that everyone else in the Eastern Conference was watching and learning from Atlanta’s efforts.
Atlanta, meanwhile, will play for everything in Game 2. It made it into the playoffs by the skin of its teeth and will back itself to edge into the Conference Semifinals in the same fashion.
Miami and Atlanta will meet again in Game 2 of the MLS Cup Playoffs on Saturday, Nov. 2. If Miami wins, it will move on to the Eastern Conference semifinals.
