By Hayden Bird
July 10, 2025 | 7:31 AM
Lionel Messi produced a pair of first half goals and Inter Miami held on in a 2-1 win against the Revolution. Playing in front of a crowd of 43,293, the game followed a familiar, albeit counterintuitive script: The home team were the Washington Generals, while the star-studded away side happily occupied the role of Harlem Globetrotters.
After Messi scored a brace in the 2024 Gillette Stadium matchup (in what was a 4-1 Miami win), he repeated the feat in the 2025 iteration. Given the conspicuously large crowd for a Revolution game — many of whom were adorned with Miami’s trademark pink jerseys — his goals were treated to a predictable level of rapturous applause.
Yet for all of their style and stature, Miami nearly squandered the lead in the second half. Tireless Revolution captain Carles Gil once again dragged his team back into contention with an 80th minute goal from a right-footed strike outside of the box.
And had New England’s plethora of options at forward managed to find the back of the net after even one of their bevy of quality chances, Caleb Porter’s team might have walked away with at least a point.
Instead, the Revolution slumped to a fourth defeat in five games, remaining firmly ensconced in 11th place in the Eastern Conference (four points below the current playoff line).
Here are a few takeaways from the latest Messi spectacle:
When playing against a man who Porter definitively referenced as the “best ever,” it helps to not pass him the ball right in front of the goal.
Yet that’s exactly what New England managed to do after navigating the first 26 minutes of the game relatively unscathed. Following Revolution center-back Mamadou Fofana heading a long ball clear, fellow central defender Tanner Beason tried to head the ball back to the Malian international.
Instead, the poorly aimed pass wound up at Messi’s feet, a calamitous mistake for which the Revolution defensive line was immediately punished in the 27th minute. Among his many otherworldly attributes, one of the 38-year-old superstar’s more fundamental qualities is that he generally takes full advantage of free chances.
After calmly dispatching the first goal, Messi struck again nearly 10 minutes later in the first half. A momentary drop in New England’s midfield pressure — combined with a discombobulated back line — resulted in Miami metronome Sergio Busquets slicing open the Revolution defense, finding Messi with a beautiful pass down the middle. The man himself applied another quality finish, firing the ball into the far corner to double Miami’s lead.
That the final scoreline ended 2-1 reflected not only the defensive mishaps from New England, but also missed opportunities on the attacking end.
On separate occasions, Leo Campana, Luca Langoni, and Tomas Chancalay all missed quality chances (in Chancalay’s case, a literal empty net in the 65th minute).
Just as Beason’s marginally misguided mistake on defense with a poorly aimed header resulted in yielding a goal, the lack of quality finishing on the other end of the field similarly contributed to yet another one-goal defeat.
The Revolution are now winless in the team’s last five games. In that run, all four losses were by a single goal. It’s been a theme for most of the season, but the recent run has put an especially bright spotlight on the handful of pivotal plays in each game that make the difference. In New England’s case, most of those plays have been mistakes or missed chances.
Amid a league where parity is a constant, the old cliche of a team “not doing the little things” rings annoyingly true.
After turning away from his preferred 4-2-3-1 system for a novel 3-4-1-2 in April, Porter managed to engineer a season-saving nine-game unbeaten run.
Yet with the good form now increasingly in the rearview mirror (amid the winless streak that has ensued), it’s worth asking if it might be time for another formation shift.
New England switched to a four-back system in the second half as Chancalay was deployed with Beason being subbed off. The switch not only in formation but mentality — the Revolution became much more aggressive as they chased the game — produced several chances, including Gil’s goal.
Still, Porter was unwilling to commit to a tactical shift in his postgame press conference.
“If we played that way the whole game, you know it would’ve been Messi with five chances and probably another two goals, so for me I liked the way we played because he didn’t create much,” the New England head coach noted.
“I think we can play both systems,” he added. “I like chasing in a 4-2-3-1, I think that’s been good for us. But when I look at the whole group, and that system for the whole group to start the game — which I thought about — I don’t think it’s the best system for us to start a game.”
It’s easy to take for granted the level of routine excellence that Messi has brought to the packed Gillette Stadium crowds in both years that he’s made the trip to New England.
Yet even as Miami navigate a particularly packed schedule following the team’s participation in the Club World Cup, the legendary World Cup winner played the entirety of the game.
As he walked off the field following the final whistle, Messi waved to an adoring crowd that treated him to one of the loudest cheers of the night.
“The guy’s a beast,” Porter admitted of Messi. “Just look at the fact that he played every game of the Club World Cup, comes back from there and you think, ‘Maybe he takes a break for one of these games?’ I’m sure he’s going to the manager, [Javier] Mascherano’s door, and saying, ‘I’m playing, don’t want a break.’ Many players would say, ‘I’ll take a break here, or bring me off the bench in this next game.’”
Yet Messi’s commitment to playing in (and dominating) each game remains seemingly as strong as it has ever been.
“It’s been said many times,” Porter concluded. “He’s the best ever. In my opinion it’s not even close. I’ve seen him first-hand now in three games in this league, and it’s unbelievable that he continues to show up game after game after game.”
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