It’s the battle of the last unbeatens! The Columbus Crew are 5W-0L-3D so far in 2025, and they’ll be hosting Inter Miami CF (4W-0L-3D) this Saturday in front of a packed house up in Cleveland, winning hearts and minds up in northeastern Ohio (4:30 pm ET | MLS Season Pass).
The Crew have played the league’s most attractive soccer over the past few years. Miami have Lionel Messi.
What I’m saying is that you don’t really need me to sell you on watching this. If you’re a soccer fan, you’re tuning in.
Columbus Crew
- Newly acquired attacker Dániel Gazdag got in for 45 minutes last weekend and had some good moments, but also had some moments where he looked to be finding his way. I bet he goes from the start this week.
- Diego Rossi is playing at an MVP clip so far in 2025, and has become one of the most well-rounded attackers in the league, blending lightning pace with touch and a ridiculously high soccer IQ.
- When I was watching the Crew last weekend, I realized that I’m expecting something good to happen every time Dylan Chambost gets on the ball. He’s started to hit that level as a box-to-box midfielder.
Inter Miami CF
- We know that Messi is going to go 90 every single time if he’s fit, and he’s 100% fit these days. The GOAT is still the GOAT – when he’s out there, you can’t take your eyes off him, even when he seems to be totally at rest.
- Are we getting a little concerned about the lack of goal danger from Luis Suárez so far this year? The Uruguayan legend looks like he needs a break, so maybe it’s time for highly rated young Ecuadorian No. 9 Allen Obando to get a run.
- I can’t think of anyone in MLS history who’s had more “rich kid bully from an 80s teen movie” energy than Federico Redondo. He brings an edge and some real nastiness (as well as a bunch of skill) to the game every time out.
The Crew are still unbeaten, obviously. Through eight games, they’re atop the East on points and points per game, then league-wide they’re second in points per game. They will want to have home-field advantage at the end of the year, and they will want to win the Supporters’ Shield. This game matters a lot in both of those races.
And as I wrote last week after the cash trade for Gazdag, maybe we’re not just talking about winning the Shield; maybe we’re talking about breaking the single-season points record (74) this Miami team set just last year. The Crew are that good.
So yeah, we’re still in the “every point matters – a lot!” part of the season for Columbus, and we’ll most likely stay in it right up to (and through) Decision Day on Oct. 18. This team, even after selling MVP finalist Cucho Hernández and trading goalscoring sidekick Christian RamĂrez this past winter, is always in the hunt for trophies. This year’s no different, and they’ll want to prove as much in front of a massive crowd at Huntington Bank Field, home of the NFL's Cleveland Browns.
It’s somehow come quietly – weird, when you consider how much hoopla there’s been around Miami for the past two years – but the Herons have hit something of a rough patch in April. They entered the month atop the Shield standings, but have taken just two points from two games and are suddenly in fifth. Overall, they’ve won just once in four outings across all competitions (a memorable win, to be fair) since March ended, and have looked vulnerable in a way they just didn’t over the first six weeks of the season.
They’ve logged a lot of miles and haven’t done a ton of squad rotation, so their legs are looking a little heavy. That’s hurt them in attack (just four goals in four games), but also in defense, where they’ve been gappier and easier to play through than in February and March.
Expectations entering this season were high, and this team expects to win every single game they play. So the stakes, as always, are enormous.
Columbus Crew
Crew head coach Wilfried Nancy pretty famously doesn’t gameplan specifically for each opponent. Or so he claims, anyway, and to be fair to him, it was hard to identify any differences in how the Crew played against Messi’s Miami side last year and how they played against, say, Nashville SC. They believe that if they execute, they can crack open virtually any opponent, no matter what their defensive shape is (it’ll likely be a 4-4-2 for Miami) or where they draw their line of confrontation. They have a lot of data to back up that dogma.
So expect them to build from a 3-4-2-1 that becomes either a 2-3-5 or a 3-2-5 in the attacking third, and if you come upfield to try to press them, good luck!
That’s Gazdag, Chambost and Rossi ripping apart a good St. Louis defense this past weekend to score a textbook Crew goal: the small passes from the back (they hit more short passes and fewer long-balls than anyone in the league, and play more passes in their defensive third than anyone in the league), followed by the dynamic back-to-front ball-carrying from a midfielder (no team progresses the ball via the dribble more often than Columbus), and finally finding one of the attackers in the half-space to have a rip against a retreating backline.
This type of soccer doesn’t just happen. It has to be downloaded and installed by every single player on the field.
Gazdag was a quick study in this moment. He was fairly anonymous for the rest of his 45 minutes, though, as he seemed to struggle to find the game and get on the ball in good spots.
I bet he’ll make visible progress this week. All three attackers in Nancy's system are space interpreters who need to know when to toggle between half-space merchant and goalscorer, and that's literally the thing Gazdag's best at.
Inter Miami CF
When Messi’s been on the field this year, they’ve played out of what I’ll call a 4-4-1-1. What I mean by that is Messi’s nominally a forward – they’ll usually defend with a front two and banks of four behind him, so it kind of looks like a 4-4-2 – but he’s totally free to drop in and become a playmaker, or flare wide to become a winger, or even, yes, do forward things running off of Suárez's movement and hold-up play.
The thing I’m wondering about here is whether Obando gets in from the start, and if he does, will this turn into more of a 4-2-3-1 with Messi as a classic No. 10? Put him in that spot with Obando stretching the line, a true winger (Robert Taylor, Fafà Picault, maybe Tadeo Allende) on the right and young Venezuelan Telasco Segovia (who started out well, but has faded recently) pinching in from the left, and you have the kind of structure that should get Messi on the ball in great spots with multiple runners to choose from.
That last part seems like a good idea!
The Crew play a high line. They are fearless, which means there’s often – always? – space in behind. No one in the history of the game has been as good at picking out those runs as Messi.
And he doesn’t need much of the ball to do it, which is good for Miami since this team’s not as possession-oriented as they were last year. They’re very content to play out of a mid-block for big chunks of the game, and even selectively press for a bit. It’s not 2011 Barcelona; it’s more like 2022 Argentina.
They can get a bit complacent when they’re not actively pushing for goals, though, and young Tomás Avilés remains mistake-prone at center back. As talented and experienced as they are, they can’t let themselves go flat.
No reason to think that Gazdag won’t be in the XI this week, and as far as I know, Yevhen Cheberko should be good to go, which maybe spells a bit of rest for Sean Zawadzki? So it’ll be the usual 3-4-2-1.
I’ll probably be wrong about this, but I’m calling the 4-2-3-1 with Messi as a 10, Obando up top and Suárez getting a breather. Getting rest for at least a couple of regulars ahead of the first leg of Miami’s Concacaf Champions Cup semifinal series against Vancouver seems prudent.
