Messi, Inter Miami still winless at Nu Stadium after 1-1 tie with Revolution
Inter Miami returned to Nu Stadium, its colorful new home, on Saturday night, desperate to finally celebrate its first win there after settling for a pair of ties earlier in the month.
But Lionel Messi and his team went home dejected after another deflating stalemate, this time 1-1 against the New England Revolution. The team remains winless through three games at its $350 million venue. Messi trudged off the field quickly and headed straight to the locker room, in no mood for post-game salutations.
German Berterame scored the equalizer in the 76th minute on a rebound off a shot by Luis Suarez. It was Berterame’s third goal in the past four games. The Revolution had taken the lead at the 56-minute mark after former MLS MVP Carles Gil slipped through Miami’s defense after a throw in and found the back of the net with a left-footed shot.
Inter Miami’s most ardent supporters, La Familia, jumped up and down in the north stands, banged drums and sang their lungs out from the opening whistle to the end, doing all they could to energize their team and the crowd of 26,609. But it was not enough.
Luis Suarez, the 39-year-old Uruguayan legend, was in the Miami starting lineup for just the second time this year. He and his close friend, Messi, arrived together, sharing a cup of mate. The team’s new venue had not been as sweet for Inter Miami as everyone had expected, and hopes were the former Barcelona duo would create magic.
They did not. Both had multiple scoring chances thwarted by U.S. national team goalkeeper Matt Turner, who had nine saves on the night and looked to be in form for the World Cup. Messi failed to register a goal or an assist in a second straight game and has not had an assist all season.
As a team, Miami had segments of the game when it played well and dominated possession, but there weren’t enough dangerous scoring chances and the team looked exhausted by the end. Tadeo Allende came off the bench and appeared to score in the 52nd minute, but the he was caught offside and the goal was disallowed.
Miami entered Saturday’s game on a high after a pair of road wins at altitude over the Colorado Rapids and Real Salt Lake. Inter Miami was 2-0 under interim coach Guillermo Hoyos, who took over last week when Javier Mascherano unexpectedly stepped down for personal reasons seven games into the season. His entire staff also resigned.
Hoyos felt his team played well for 25 or 30 minutes, but said three games in seven days, with long travel in between, may have caught up with them.
“I am grateful for the effort and the hard work the players put in over the past seven days, they made an incredible effort in three games...they competed in an extraordinary way,” he said. “We found ourselves in difficult conditions [Saturday] with the humidity and were unable to sustain the level we had for 25 or 30 minutes. We were fatigued. It’s not an excuse, but it’s the reality...But the team kept trying and in the end, out of a possible nine points [in three games], we got seven.”
Defender Gonzalo Lujan agreed that the team was struggling to find energy on Saturday.
“These three games were tough, all in one week, and after a coaching change,” Lujan said. “We stepped up our intensity last week, ran a lot, and I think we noticed the fatigue in this game. We started pretty well, but we had a dip in energy and that cost us.”
Hoyos decided to start Suarez at forward on Saturday following his banger of a goal off the bench late in Wednesday’s win over Salt Lake. Suarez, who signed a one-year contract for what he said will be his final season, had started only one game this season and scored two goals in 142 minutes.
After the Salt Lake game, Hoyos was asked if pairing strikers Suarez and Berterame, as he did in the final 15 minutes Wednesday, was an option in the future. Hoyos replied: “Yes, obviously. Luis is not just an option. He is a player with more than 600 goals. Between them he and Leo [Messi] have scored 1,500 something goals. That is not normal. You don’t see that anywhere. People come out to see their magic. It’s extraordinary.”
After the game Saturday, Hoyos said having Suarez and Messi on the field together made sense because they have a special telepathy on the field after so many years playing together. “Suarez is at a good level,” Hoyos said. “He has a connection with Leo that is very important.”
Suarez got his chance on a day when Mateo Silvetti was out injured with a strained hamstring and Tadeo Allende was on the bench after struggling with his form so far this season after scoring an MLS playoff-record nine goals during the 2025 run to the MLS Cup title.
In addition to Messi and Suarez, the rest of Miami’s starters Saturday were: Goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair, defender Gonzalo Lujan, defender Micael, defender Maxi Falcon, left back Noah Allen, right back Facundo Mura, midfielder Rodrigo De Paul, midfielder David Ruiz, and Berterame.
The bench included Ian Fray, Santi Morales, Allende, Rocco Rios-Novo, Daniel Pinter, Preston Plambeck, Daniel Sumalla, Cesar Abadia-Reda, and Alex Shaw.
David Ayala (left adductor) and Sergio Reguilon (right hamstring) trained on Friday but were not available for the game.
Midfielder Yannick Bright sat out his second game in a row while serving a one-game MLS-imposed suspension in addition to the red card suspension he served on Wednesday. Midfielder Telasco Segovia was also suspended due to yellow card accumulation.
New England forward Leo Campana, the former Inter Miami fan favorite, missed the game with a lower body injury as did Matt Polster.
Miami remains in second place in the Eastern Conference with 19 points on five wins, one loss and four ties and has five matches left before MLS takes a seven-week break for the World Cup. Inter Miami’s next five opponents are: Orlando, Toronto, Cincinnati, Portland and Philadelphia.
“This stretch of games was very important after the coaching change,” Lujan said. “It was important for us to start a new stage and I thought overall we did well and we have to move on.”
This story was originally published April 25, 2026 at 7:17 PM.