This time, Messi, Suarez, Busquets travel for Inter Miami vs. Vancouver clash
The social media buzz began at noon on Wednesday, the moment Inter Miami posted a photo of smiling Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, in pink and black, mate thermoses in tow, boarding an airplane with the caption “Next stop: Vancouver”.
Unlike last year, when Messi, Suarez, and Sergio Busquets were no-shows for the game at BC Place, drawing the ire of the 51,000 fans who had purchased tickets, photographic evidence of the three Inter Miami stars traveling to Vancouver set off excitement among soccer fans in the Canadian city.
This time, the stakes are much higher, and a sellout crowd awaits the South Florida visitors. Thursday’s game is not just a regular-season MLS matchup. It is the first leg of the CONCACAF Champions Cup semifinal against a Vancouver team that has been the biggest surprise of the season and leads the Supporters’ Shield race with the league’s best record.
Miami tops MLS with 2.25 points per game and Vancouver is just behind at 2.22. This is a battle between the best team in the East and the best team in the West.
“This is a very important game for us, one of the most important in the history of the club,” Miami coach Javier Mascherano said on the eve of the game. “We have a 180-minute game [over the two home-and-away legs] and Thursday is the first half. It is important that we play a good game and try to score as many goals as possible, because road goals are valuable in this competition [they are the tiebreaker in the aggregate scoring]. We want to have the ball, be protagonists.”
Miami winger Fafa Picault, who played for Vancouver last season, added: “I still keep up with them a bit, a lot of my buddies are still on the team. I know it’s a very united, dynamic group. It’s a dangerous team, an exciting team. But as many strengths as they have, we have studied their weaknesses, too. It’s going to be an exciting matchup for us. We have 90 minutes and 90 minutes to get the job done.”
The Whitecaps boast a 6-1-2 league record, rank second in MLS with 17 goals scored and are tied for fewest allowed (six) despite injuries to two of their key players, Ryan Gauld and Sam Adekugbe.
Perhaps most impressive, Vancouver reached the Champions Cup semifinals by knocking off Mexican league powers Monterrey and Pumas. The Whitecaps won games in Mexico, which is difficult to do. Inter Miami lost to Monterrey in the quarterfinals last year.
The late goal against Pumas in the quarterfinals secured Vancouver the semifinal series against Messi and his high-profile team, the only unbeaten team left in the league. Miami trails Charlotte and Cincinnati by one point in the Eastern Conference but have a game in hand.
Both teams are led by first-year coaches who came into the season with no MLS experience.
Miami is thriving and playing more organized defense under Mascherano, the former Argentine star who played with Messi, Suarez, Busquets and Jordi Alba at Barcelona. Miami has allowed just six goals in eight games, which is tied with Vancouver and St. Louis for fewest in MLS.
The backline, which had a history of conceding goals in transition and making costly mistakes, has been much more compact and disciplined this season. Noah Allen, the homegrown 20-year-old from Pembroke Pines has become a fixture in the starting lineup and the addition of experienced Maxi “Peluca” Falcon, an excellent communicator, has helped.
Yannick Bright, in his second season after being drafted from the University of New Hampshire, is known for his soccer I.Q., making him a perfect defensive midfield partner for Busquets. He rescues Miami time and again when opponents get loose.
Vancouver’s coach, Jesper Sorensen of Denmark, was hired in January and the team was an afterthought in the preseason predictions. In three months, the Whitecaps have become the toast of the league.
Sorensen does not seem overwhelmed by the challenge of facing Messi, who has eight goals and three assists in 11 games across all competitions this season. After skipping the most recent FIFA international window with a leg injury, he has played 90-plus minutes in four consecutive games.
“It’s not every day that we end up in the semifinals,” Sorensen told Vancouver reporters. “We should … try to seize the moment of being here.
“Of course, Lionel Messi is a special player for this sport. What he has been contributing to this sport, the way he has played and delighted people over the past 20 years is, of course, special. That will be silly of me to say something else.
“It’s special that he is playing for Miami and we’re playing Miami. But on the other side, it’s not Vancouver against Messi, it’s Vancouver against Miami. And we’re not here to celebrate Messi. We’re here to do whatever we can to see if we can move on. And that should be our task.”
Among the Vancouver players to watch are U.S. national team forward Brian White, who scored four goals in a 5-1 win over Austin this season, and midfielder Sebastian Berhalter, son of Gregg Berhalter, the former U.S. national team coach who now is at the Chicago Fire.
The Whitecaps’ Colombian fullback Edier Ocampo gives opponents fits and Canadian winger Jayden Nelson has also been an important part of the team’s success.
How to Watch: Inter Miami vs. Vancouver Whitecaps in the Champions Cup semifinal first leg kicks off at 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Fans can watch on FS1 in English and TUDN in Spanish.
This story was originally published April 23, 2025 at 4:39 PM.