You'd be forgiven if you assumed that Inter Miami would collapse after the Club World Cup. It's an easy narrative to construct, a fair summation based on the events of the previous few weeks. Lionel Messi and Miami advanced through the group stage of the CWC, but looked truly exhausted in their 4-0 round of 16 loss to eventual runners-up PSG.
They picked up a few injuries along the way, and were emblematic of MLS's struggles on the global stage - Miami is the only one of the three domestic league teams in the tournament to win a game - as they were wiped out by the European Champions on home(ish) turf.
The next bit would be easy to call: tired legs, more injuries, perhaps even a Messi fall off. It would not have been controversial to suggest that the loss to PSG would tip the dominoes and be the start of three immensely difficult months.
That narrative has taken about two weeks to disintegrate.
Miami have not collapsed. Instead, they look truly excellent, reborn and reinvigorated by a campaign in which they became the first MLS club to beat a European team in a competitive competition. Of course, Messi has been at the center of it all. The Argentine has scored twice in each of his last five league appearances - tying an MLS record for consecutive multi-goal games. Add two against Cincinnati on Wednesday night and he will have beaten it.
But it's not just him. More broadly, Miami are a stronger side. They are better balanced, rightly structured, and more defensively steady. When Messi is on song, and the Herons have the structure around him, they are very hard to beat.
GOAL looks at some of the tactical tweaks that manager Javier Mascherano has made to avoid a post CWC hangover.
