Inter Miami vs. Columbus Crew LIVE STREAM (10/2/24): Watch Messi play online | Time, TV, channel for MLS game

Inter Miami, led by Lionel Messi, will face Columbus Crew in an MLS match on Wednesday, October 2, 2024 (10/2/24), at Lower.com Field in Columbus, Ohio.

WATCH THIS: Fans can watch on Apple TV+, through an MLS Season Pass subscription or through a free trial of fuboTV.

Here's what you need to know:

What: MLS game

WHO: Inter Miami vs. Columbus Crew

When: Wednesday, October 2, 2024

Time: 7:45 p.m. ET

Where: Lower.com field

TV: FS1

Live stream: Apple TV+ or fuboTV

Information about every MLS game:

Fans can watch every game on Apple TV+ with an MLS Season Pass subscription. This is the only way to watch every MLS game. Select games will also be broadcast on FS1, which fans can stream via free trials on fuboTV or DirectTV Stream.

Here's a recent AP story about Messi:

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — There are plenty of opportunities for Lionel Messi and Inter Miami to clinch the Supporters' Shield and secure the top spot in the standings for the MLS Cup playoffs that begin later this month .

Here's the easiest way: win on Wednesday.

Major League Soccer's preseason title favorites – with a line-up including Messi, Luis Suarez, Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets – are on the verge of another trophy. They can clinch the Supporters' Shield, awarded to the team with the best MLS regular-season record, with a win at Columbus on Wednesday night.

“This is a great opportunity for us,” said Inter Miami midfielder Matias Rojas. “We are taking it step by step. This team has been built step by step. So we want to win on Wednesday and achieve that goal.”

It would take a complete collapse in the final three games for Inter Miami to avoid entering the playoffs as No. 1 overall, and the Supporters' Shield would be the second trophy in the club's history – after winning the 2023 Leagues Cup title, not long after Messi arrived and immediately turned the club into a global phenomenon.

One Miami team – the long-defunct Fusion – has won the Supporters' Shield before. The merger won it in 2001, which became the club's final season due to attendance and revenue problems. Inter Miami has never been near the top of the MLS table; It was 19th out of 26 teams in 2020, 20th out of 27 teams in 2021, 12th out of 28 teams in 2022 and 27th out of 29 clubs last season.

This year was expected to be completely different, and it has proven to be so. The club started 3-2-1 in its first six MLS games and has since posted a record of 16-2-7. It is already by far the best record in the club's history and a 3-0-0 result would give Inter Miami the MLS mark for most points in a regular season.

They could finish with 74, one more than New England's 73 in 2021.

“When a team like Inter has 65 points and has only lost four games all season, and you compare them to teams from previous seasons, we should recognize all the good things we have achieved this season,” Inter Miami said -Trainer Gerardo “Tata” Martino.

And it's not all Messi.

He has missed Inter Miami's 15 MLS games this season, either due to commitments with the Argentina national team or the two-month absence he needed to recover from a serious ankle injury – an injury that occurred during his pursuit Landes had closed for the Copa America title in 2011 in July.

Inter Miami, playing in MLS this season, is 9-1-6 with Messi in the lineup. This is probably no surprise; His teams have been difficult to beat for much of the last 20 years. This part is the surprise: Inter Miami is 10-3-2 when Messi hasn't played in league games.

With Messi, the team averages 2.06 table points per game out of three possible games, and without him, the team averages 2.13 table points. It makes no sense that the record would be better without the eight-time Ballon d'Or winner and all-time greatest player in the lineup, but somehow those are the numbers.

“This proves that Inter Miami’s lineup isn’t just Messi and a few other players,” said goalkeeper Drake Callender.

“I think it’s just the versatility of our team,” Callender said. “We gained depth as the season went on because a lot of these guys didn’t get a lot of minutes at the beginning of the year. But they have more experience now, we have more options and we are more versatile in the way we want to play. So I think we’re in a pretty good position going forward.”

If the decisive point – which comes with home-field advantage throughout the MLS Cup playoffs all the way to the final – does not come about on Wednesday, Inter Miami's final two regular-season games will take place on Saturday in Toronto and then on October 19 at home against New England. Inter Miami's playoff run begins at home on the last weekend of October.

The focus is on the playoff title, the MLS Cup. But number 1 is also important, said Alba.

“We hope to win against a great team like Columbus and we will come in with a winning mentality,” Alba said. “Winning the Supporters' Shield would be a nice achievement in the club's history, but ultimately we want to win the MLS Cup.”