MIAMI — Lionel Messi scored four goals and added an assist Saturday night as Inter Miami routed CF Montreal 7-1, snapping the team’s winless run in emphatic fashion and pushing the Argentine superstar to the top of Major League Soccer’s scoring race.

The victory at Nu Stadium marked a club record for goals scored in a single match for Inter Miami, according to ESPN, and came after the team had gone five games without a win. Miami improved to 12-4-6 on the season, ending August with a 1-2-2 record for the month despite the emphatic finish.

Carlos Casemiro opened the scoring in the 20th minute, heading in a corner kick from Telasco Segovia for his first goal in his sixth appearance for the club, while the assist marked a career-best ninth of the season for Segovia in his second MLS campaign. Montreal answered in the 37th minute when Fabian Herbers scored his first goal of the year to level the match at 1-1.

Messi took over from there. He put Miami back in front in the 40th minute with a free kick that deflected off a Montreal defender and past goalkeeper Thomas Gillier, marking his 15th goal of the season. He extended the lead to 3-1 in the 52nd minute, dribbling through a cluster of Montreal defenders before finishing with his right foot, a goal that pulled him level with FC Dallas forward Petar Musa atop the league’s scoring chart. Messi then set up Luis Suarez for Miami’s fourth goal in the 80th minute before completing his hat trick three minutes later, chipping the ball over Gillier following a pass from Rodrigo De Paul to make it 5-1. Eighteen-year-old rookie Alexander Shaw added a sixth goal in the 89th minute, his first in three MLS appearances, before Messi capped the rout with a curling free kick deep into stoppage time to make it 7-1.

The four-goal outing marked the eighth time in Messi’s career that he has scored four or more goals in a single match, and the first time he has done so since joining Inter Miami, according to ESPN. His last previous four-goal performance came in February 2020 for Barcelona against Eibar in Spain’s La Liga. He is also now the fastest player in MLS history to reach 20 multigoal games in a regular season, doing so in just 72 appearances for the club. With the performance, Messi moved to 18 goals for the season, two ahead of Musa for the league’s Golden Boot lead, and now has 62 career hat tricks at the club level.

Inter Miami teammate Casemiro praised Messi’s continued influence on the team following the match. “That’s what it means to have Messi on the team,” Casemiro told Apple TV. “We have to enjoy these moments because he is a person, a player that makes history. We saw today that we have to enjoy it, keep supporting and keep competing with him because he continues to be the best.”

Miami interim head coach Guillermo Hoyos, who was serving under a suspension and unable to be on the bench for the match, echoed that sentiment afterward. “There are no words to describe such footballing beauty,” Hoyos said. “So much is going on that words simply fall short.”

Miami’s dominance extended well beyond Messi’s individual tally, with the team controlling 57% of possession and finishing with 11 shots on goal, according to MSN. Goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair made three saves for Miami, while Gillier finished with five saves for Montreal, which fell to 5-11-6 on the season and has now lost five consecutive matches to Inter Miami. Miami’s rout also comes at a significant point in the Eastern Conference standings, providing a substantial confidence boost as the club looks to remain in contention for a top playoff position down the stretch of the regular season.

The result caps a particularly productive individual stretch for Messi, who at 39 years old continues to anchor Inter Miami’s attack alongside longtime national team teammates Suarez and De Paul. His performance Saturday further cements his status as the driving force behind the club since his 2023 arrival, with Saturday’s four-goal haul standing as one of the signature individual performances of his MLS tenure to date.