Luis Suarez and Inter Miami continued their winning ways on Saturday night, beating the host Chicago Fire 4-1.
Suarez forced an own goal in the first half, then added two goals of his own in the second half to bring his season total to 16 as Miami (18-4-5, 59 points) won its fourth straight match and improved to 8-1-1 in its last 10 outings.
Robert Taylor also scored for Miami, which was without superstar Lionel Messi, who hasn’t played in a match since getting injured while helping Argentina win the Copa America final against Colombia on July 14.
Miami’s David Ruiz, Diego Gomez, Jordi Alba, Leonardo Campana and Sergio Busquets all added assists.
The Fire (6-13-8, 26 points) are winless in three straight matches (0-2-1).
Miami took a 1-0 lead in the 24th minute as Suarez’s initial shot was stopped by Chris Brady, but it then took a deflection off defender Tobias Salquist for an own goal.
The lead grew to 2-0 in the 47th minute. This time, a Gomez pass found the run of Suarez, who struck it cleanly past Brady to double the Miami advantage.
Suarez struck again in the 65th minute to make it 3-0. Following a Busquets free kick, Alba’s cross from just inside the left edge of the box was laid off by Gomez, then met by a perfect touch by Suarez that found the back of the net.
Chicago finally found the scoreboard through Georgios Koutsias in the 82nd minute, as he slid a Kellyn Acosta cross past Drake Callender to make it 3-1.
But Miami added a fourth goal in second-half stoppage time as Taylor put home a Campana pass to finish the scoring.
Miami finished with 18 shots to Chicago’s 15, including an 8-to-4 shots-on-goal advantage. Their 62 goals lead all MLS teams.
Callender made three saves as he came just a few minutes shy of a second straight clean sheet. Brady finished the evening with five saves for the Fire.
Miami was without Tomas Aviles, who was shown a red card against FC Cincinnati in the last match.
–Field Level Media
