Inter Miami CF is back home on Saturday night with momentum that is hard to ignore. Atlanta United FC visits Nu Stadium on Sept. 5, with kickoff set for 7:30 p.m. ET in MLS regular season play, and the hosts arrive after the most one-sided win in club history.
Last Saturday, Inter Miami CF beat CF Montréal 7-1, a result that gave the club a 12W-4L-6D record and 42 points, good for second place in the Eastern Conference. Leo Messi drove the rout with four goals and one assist, while Alexander Shaw and Casemiro each scored their first goals for Inter Miami CF and Luis Suárez also found the net. The performance was enough to send Messi to Team of the Matchday for a ninth time this regular season and Player of the Matchday for a third time.
That is the form Atlanta United FC has to walk into, and the contrast is stark. Atlanta comes in at 6W-13L-3D with 21 points, a total that comes from six wins and three draws, with the rest of the results landing in the loss column. In other words, the points total is not a mystery: three points for each of the six wins makes 18, plus one point each from three draws brings Atlanta to 21. Inter Miami, by comparison, has more than twice as many points and has just posted a club-record margin of victory.
The matchup also is a single regular-season meeting, not a series, so there is no room for a follow-up leg to change the mood quickly. Fans can tune in live on Apple TV, but the central question is on the field: whether Atlanta can slow an Inter Miami side that is scoring freely and has Messi producing at a level few teams can match. The next answer comes at 7:30 p.m. ET, when the ball is kicked and the standings start to matter again.
