Good, Bad & Ugly: Suárez brace, Lewandowski debut highlight Inter Miami win | OneFootball

It's not fair, really. For almost two months, we watched 48 of the globe's best national teams vying for the 2026 World Cup; now the return of Major League Soccer provides a vivid reminder of the talent gap between MLS and the world's best leagues.

The disparity was on full display Wednesday in Inter Miami's 3-2 home win against the Chicago Fire. To be fair, the teams hadn't played since May, and both were playing with very different lineups than they fielded before the World Cup break.

The Herons (10-2-4, 34 points) played without Lionel Messi, Rodrigo De Paul, starting center back Gonzalo Luján and five others; they added three Inter Miami II players, forward Diego Rey and defenders Daniel Sumalla and Ian Urkidi -- to the senior roster Wednesday just to fill the bench. Rocco Ríos Novo started in goal, Ian Fray played right center back after primarily playing wing back this year and last, and Miami native David Ruíz got a rare start in the midfield.

Legendary Polish striker Robert Lewandoski, who starred at Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich and Barcelona before signing with the Chicago Fire (8-5-2, 26 pts.) earlier this month, made his MLS debut in place of striker Hugo Cuypers, who leads the MLS Golden Boot race with 13 goals. Chicago traded Cuypers to CF Monterrey in Mexico for a $7.5 million transfer fee and add-ons worth about $500,000.

The Herons and Fire were second and third, respectively, in the Eastern Conference entering last night's match, but one wouldn't have guessed it from the sloppy display decided by a Suárez brace, rookie Preston Plambeck's first MLS goal, and Chicago's inability to convert multiple opportunities in Miami's box.

Here's a recap of the match's good, bad and ugly:

GOOD -- Berteramez. The Suárez-Berterame pairing in Guillermo Hoyos' 4-4-2 is beautiful to see. Berterame has become a different player since Hoyos reinserted Suárez into the starting lineup. He didn't score, but the quick, short passing between the strikers in Chicago's box wreaked havoc on the Fire defenders and helped create the Herons' first two goals, both by Suárez: the Uruguayan legend scored a penalty kick after Berterame's deft pass to Ruíz led to a Chicago foul in the penalty box, and added a second after a rapid series of give-and-go passes put him in on Fire keeper Chris Brady.

The duo shined in Messi's absence, earning FotMob's highest player ratings in the match (Suárez 9.1 of 10, Berterame 8.1).

BAD -- Lewandowski. Lewy failed to make an impact in his Fire debut, playing 62 minutes with 0.07 expected goals and 0.04 expected assists. He understandably wasn't in synch with his teammates and isn't in match fitness, but he's only been training with the Fire since July 14, so expect dramatic improvement in the weeks ahead.

UGLY -- Rocco "Blocco." This one hurts a little, because I really like Rocco but, it is what it is. Ríos Novo replaced Inter Miami starter Óscar Ustari late last year and was between the pipes for the Herons' MLS Cup championship run, but the club signed 2025 MLS Goalkeeper of the Year Dayne St. Clair from Minnesota in the offseason and Rocco was making just his second start of the season. It couldn't have started worse for Ríos Novo.

In the 18th minute, Fray played a routine pass back to Rocco from the right. In his defense, Rocco was distracted by Lewandowski running toward him, and Fray played the pass on a line into the Herons goal. You can guess what happened next.

Rocco whiffed. Swung his left foot at the ball and hit nothing but air.

The 24-year-old recovered to play a respectable game, and the Herons won on Plambeck's 87th-minute goal, so the incident is just a funny story. But he'll need to show much better concentration to win the goalkeeper job over St. Clair.

Inter Miami's next match takes them north of the border to play CF Montréal (4-9-3, 15 points), 13th out of 15 Eastern Conference. Kickoff is at 6:30 p.m. CDT Saturday.