Riquelme Fillipi saves the day as Inter Miami rallies for a 2-2 draw with Cincinnati in stoppage time

Inter Miami CF had the game well in hand until FC Cincinnati flipped the scoreboard in six minutes of madness, forcing Riquelme Fillipi to rescue a point in the dying seconds. The match at Nu Stadium ended 2-2, with four goals coming between the 60th and 89th minutes, and left both sides with a draw in MLS play.

The first half was back and forth without goals, with Lionel Messi testing the Cincinnati defense repeatedly from outside the box (he tried in the 31st, 38th, 57th and 59th minutes) without finding the finish. The game finally broke open in the second half: in the 60th minute, Luis Suárez popped up inside the box and finished with his right foot off a corner kick from Casemiro to make it 1-0.

It looked like Inter Miami CF would see out the lead, but FC Cincinnati answered with a crushing late stretch. In the 79th minute, Kenji Mboma Dem buried a left-footed strike into the top corner, assisted by Evander, to level the score. Just six minutes later, in the 85th, Samuel Gidi capitalized on a counterattack set up by Tom Barlow, finishing near the left post to put the visitors ahead 2-1. Nu Stadium went quiet: the home side, which had controlled possession all game, suddenly found itself losing in the final stretch.

But Inter Miami CF refused to go down. Telasco Segovia rattled the post with a header in the 88th minute, and just a minute later, Riquelme Fillipi, who had just come on as a substitute, finished with his right foot inside the box off a pass from Rodrigo De Paul to make it a final 2-2 in stoppage time.

Dominance that didn't translate to the scoreboard

The numbers show a match controlled by the home side in possession, but far more even than that figure suggests when it comes to clear-cut chances.

Inter Miami CF held the ball nearly twice as long as its opponent, but FC Cincinnati was right there in total shots (13 to 14) and didn't fall far behind on shots on target either. Our own xG estimate for this match, calculated after the final whistle based on shot location, also shows a razor-thin gap: 0.79 for Inter Miami CF against 0.705 for FC Cincinnati. In terms of chances created, a draw wasn't far off from what actually happened on the scoreboard.

What was far off, though, was the forecast we published before kickoff. We gave Inter Miami CF a 64% chance of winning, against just 19% for FC Cincinnati and 17% for a draw, with expected goals of 3.09 for the home side and 1.73 for the visitors. Reality played out very differently: the home team not only failed to win, it needed a stoppage-time goal just to avoid defeat, and the match's total goal count (four) fell well short of the 4.82 we had projected.

What the result means in the standings

In the Eastern Conference, Inter Miami CF holds onto third place with 56 points from 32 games played (15 wins, 11 draws and 6 losses), while FC Cincinnati sits eighth with 43 points from the same number of matches (11 wins, 10 draws and 11 losses). The gap between the two sides in the standings is 13 points, something this Saturday's draw doesn't change much, though it also doesn't reflect just how even the match was on the field.

In the end, Inter Miami CF is left with the feeling of having let slip a lead it thought was already secured, while FC Cincinnati will rue being minutes away from a win that seemed within reach after goals from Mboma Dem and Gidi. In between, Luis Suárez, Messi and company created enough to keep the draw from feeling like a loss.