Luis Suárez Hat Trick Lifts Inter Miami Past Union 6-4 After MLS-Record Eight-Goal First Half

Eight goals. One half. By the time the first 45 minutes and a frankly unhinged nine minutes of stoppage time were done at Nu Stadium, the scoreboard read 4-4 and looked like someone had fat-fingered a calculator.

Then the rain came, the pace dropped, and Inter Miami CF found two more. Luis Suárez completed his hat trick in the 81st minute and Rodrigo De Paul, on his birthday according to the AP, sealed it in stoppage time as Miami beat the Philadelphia Union 6-4 on Sunday night. Milan Iloski scored a first-half hat trick of his own and still left with nothing, which feels like a crime against hat tricks.

The Half That Broke the Record Book

The Union arrived as the league's last-place team and played like nobody had shown them the table. In the third minute, Frankie Westfield nodded a ball into Iloski's path and he finished from the middle of the box. Six minutes later Iloski drew a foul from Dayne St. Clair, the Miami keeper took a yellow card, and Iloski rolled the 10th-minute penalty down the middle. 2-0, with barely 10 minutes on the clock.

Miami answered three minutes later when Lionel Messi set up Germán Berterame from very close range. Philadelphia restored the two-goal cushion in the 20th minute: St. Clair saved Westfield's shot from the right side, and Bruno Damiani pounced for 3-1. The Union's own recap noted it was Damiani's first regular season goal with the club.

Then the Herons flipped the whole thing. Suárez made it 3-2 in the 29th minute off an Ian Fray assist. Messi slid a through ball to Berterame for the 41st-minute equalizer. Three minutes after that, Andre Blake saved De Paul's shot, and Suárez was parked in exactly the right spot to bundle in the rebound. Three Miami goals in 15 minutes, and a 4-3 lead.

Still not done. Deep in stoppage time, Sergio Reguilón was penalized for a handball in the box, VAR backed the call, and Iloski stepped up again in the eighth added minute. This time he went top right corner. Hat trick, and 4-4 at the break.

The AP reported that the league called eight goals by halftime an MLS record, and the Union's recap described it as the record for most goals in the first half of a league match. MLS added that the 10 combined goals tied for the second-most in a league match, behind only the LA Galaxy's 7-4 win over the Colorado Rapids in May 1998.

Suárez, Berterame and the Messi Machine

Suárez finished with three goals on four shots, all of them from inside the box, two from point-blank range. That is the most Luis Suárez stat line imaginable. The winner was vintage poacher work: Miami broke in the 81st minute, Blake stopped Berterame's effort, and Berterame then fed Suárez for a left-footed finish from close range.

Berterame was nearly as good, with two goals and an assist on four shots, every one of them on target. Messi had two assists before coming off in the 73rd minute. ESPN's feed lists the change as injury-related, while the league described the exit as muscular fatigue and load management. The AP pointed out that Messi almost never gets subbed out, and with Argentina opening its World Cup on June 16, that detail will be watched closely.

On the other bench, Iloski was ridiculous: three goals, seven shots, five on target, two penalties, plus a late free kick from long range that sailed just over. The Union's recap called it a historic performance. It deserved a better final chapter. Westfield deserves a shout as well: his header set up the opener, and his saved shot was the ball Damiani buried for the third goal.

The Turning Point

Pick the 73rd minute. Moments before Messi left, De Paul hammered a shot off the crossbar from the center of the box, and Fray had already clanged a header off the post from a 47th-minute corner. Philadelphia were surviving on fumes and woodwork, and the heavy rain the AP described early in the second half turned the night into a slog.

The Union kept probing anyway. Bradley Carnell sent on Alejandro Bedoya, whom the club called its oldest player and captain, for 16-year-old Cavan Sullivan, and Bedoya forced St. Clair into a save with a 78th-minute header. But the next real punch belonged to Miami. Suárez struck in the 81st, and in the third minute of stoppage time Mateo Silvetti, Messi's replacement, sprang De Paul on a counter for the 6-4 dagger.

Stats That Matter

• Shots: Philadelphia 21, Miami 17. The Union outshot the hosts and both sides put 10 on target.
• Possession: Miami controlled 63.7 percent of the ball.
• Penalties: Philadelphia went 2 for 2, both from Iloski.
• Saves: St. Clair made six, Blake four.
• Cards: Miami collected six yellow cards, including St. Clair's on the first penalty.

What It Means

Miami head into the World Cup break at 9-4-2 with 31 points, and the club noted it was their fourth straight win in the regular season. The AP had them second in the Eastern Conference, two points behind Nashville, and the league said they have scored a league-best 39 goals. MLS also noted it was their second win at their new ground, which counts as a pretty loud housewarming party.

Philadelphia sit at 1-4-10 with seven points, last in the overall table according to MLS, a stunning fall for the club that won the Supporters' Shield last season. The silver lining is real, though. A lineup the club said was stretched by a lengthy injury list scored four times on the road against the defending champions, and Iloski looked like a player you build a second half around.

Closing Take

This game was a summer blockbuster with the plot of a sitcom. Everybody scored, nobody defended, and the No. 9 strolled in for the final scene like he had read the script in advance. Philadelphia wrote the first act. Suárez, as usual, wrote the ending.

Stats from ESPN's match data. Additional details from the AP recap via ESPN, mlssoccer.com, intermiamicf.com and philadelphiaunion.com.