There are days when you watch Lionel Messi and genuinely wonder what sport the rest of us have been watching all our lives. Saturday was one of those days. Four goals. An assist. A 7-1 demolition of CF Montreal. At 39 years old. In a league that a certain strain of football snob still dismisses as a retirement home. Interim Miami coach Guillermo Hoyos put it as well as anyone can: "There are no words to describe such footballing beauty." He's right, and we're not going to pretend otherwise. ## Messi Does What Messi Does Miami had been dreadful. Five games without a win across all competitions, the sort of run that gets managers sacked and fanbases restless. Then Messi happened. He restored Miami's lead before half-time, struck again in the 52nd minute, completed his hat-trick in the 83rd, and then, just to remind everyone exactly who they were dealing with, curled in a free kick in stoppage time. His first career four-goal haul in MLS also pushed him to 18 goals for the season, top of the MLS scoring charts. Casemiro, who joined Miami in July after leaving Manchester United and who spent years on the opposite side of the El Clásico divide, Real Madrid to Messi's Barcelona, summed it up simply from the dressing room. "We have to enjoy these moments because he is a person, a player that makes history." Hard to argue. Hoyos added: "He is constantly looking for that goal, that play, that pass; I don't think he's an ordinary footballer." No, Guillermo. He very much is not. Worth noting too: Messi captained Argentina to this year's World Cup final, a tournament he won back in 2022, where they lost to Spain. The man is still operating at the absolute peak of what football allows a human being to be. ## The Rest of the Weekend While Miami were busy embarrassing Montreal, there was plenty else happening across MLS. Dejan Joveljić made an instant impression on his Seattle Sounders debut, scoring twice in a 2-2 draw with Chicago Fire. Acquired from Sporting Kansas City for $6m on Tuesday, he opened the scoring in the 12th minute and added a second after the break, a lofted effort that came back off the underside of the crossbar and into the net. [Not unlike the kind of transfer business we've been tracking in European football lately](/uprise/football/football-daily-why-the-transfer-window-is-actually-a-large), quick deals can produce immediate returns. Chicago's Robert Lewandowski and Maren Haile-Selassie each contributed a goal and an assist as the Fire extended their unbeaten run to five. In Orlando, Minnesota United scored three times in four minutes to overturn a 2-0 deficit against Orlando City, only for Tyrese Spicer, assisted by Antoine Griezmann, to equalise three minutes into stoppage time and make it 3-3. A wild finish to a wild match. And in Philadelphia, 16-year-old Cavan Sullivan became the first player of his age in MLS history to record goal contributions in four consecutive matches, scoring in the Union's 3-1 win over New York Red Bulls. Teenager Neil Pierre also got in on the act. Youth football, doing what it's supposed to do. ## Our Take Messi at 39 is still the most compelling argument in football. Everything else, transfer sagas, managerial reshuffles, [Champions League group stage intrigue](/uprise/football/champions-league-draw-arsenal-face-real-madrid-man-city-get), takes a back seat when he picks up the ball. Enjoy it while it lasts, because nothing lasts forever. Not even this.