an emphatic 5-1 win over NYCFC<\/a>. Perhaps the only surprise is that Messi didn\u2019t score any of the five, with Tadeo Allende (hat trick), Mateo Silvetti and Telasco Segovia finding the back of the net at an elated Chase Stadium. The home crowd will get one more game to cheer on their squad, and it\u2019s the one that matters most. For Allende, his eight goals during a single postseason has tied an MLS record (Carlos Ruiz, 2002).<\/p>\nWaiting in the final will the Vancouver Whitecaps, who went into the home of the No. 1 seed San Diego FC and blitzed the expansion side in the opening 10 minutes to claim the Western Conference championship with a 3-1 win. Because Vancouver finished behind Miami in the overall Supporters\u2019 Shield standings during the regular season, Miami has earned the right to host MLS Cup.<\/p>\n
MLS Cup will take place on Dec. 6 \u2013 a day after the World Cup draw. So a day after learning Argentina\u2019s route to defending its World Cup title, Messi will turn his focus to trying to lift his first league championship in MLS since his arrival in the summer of 2023. No matter what, it\u2019ll mark the final match for both Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, with the two longtime Spain and Barcelona stars previously announcing they\u2019ll be retiring at the end of the MLS season. It\u2019ll also mark the final Inter Miami match for Chase Stadium, with the club moving to its new Miami Freedom Park next season.<\/p>\n
For Vancouver, it also marks a first appearance in an MLS Cup final. The club did play in the Concacaf Champions Cup final earlier this season \u2013 routing Inter Miami 5-1 on aggregate in the semifinals to get there \u2013 but then got throttled in the title match by Cruz Azul. Now with serial winner Thomas M\u00fcller in tow, the \u2018Caps will be hoping for a happier final this time around.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what the road to MLS Cup has looked like (Updated as of Nov. 29):<\/p>\n
Full MLS Cup playoff schedule and results<\/p>\n
First round (best of three): Oct. 24-Nov. 9<\/p>\n
Game One<\/p>\n
Oct. 24: Inter Miami 3, Nashville SC 1<\/p>\n
Oct. 26: Philadelphia Union 2, Chicago Fire 2 (Philadelphia wins 4-2 on PKs)<\/p>\n
Oct. 26: Vancouver Whitecaps 3, FC Dallas 0<\/p>\n
Oct. 26: San Diego FC 2, Portland Timbers 1<\/p>\n
Oct. 27: FC Cincinnati 1, Columbus Crew 0<\/p>\n
Oct. 27: Minnesota United 0, Seattle Sounders 0 (Minnesota wins 3-2 on PKs)<\/p>\n
Oct. 28: Charlotte FC 0, New York City FC 1<\/p>\n
Oct. 29: LAFC 2, Austin FC 1<\/p>\n
Game Two<\/p>\n
Nov. 1: New York City FC 0, Charlotte FC 0 (Charlotte wins 7-6 on PKs)<\/p>\n
Nov. 1: Chicago Fire 0, Philadelphia Union 3<\/p>\n
Nov. 1: Nashville SC 2, Inter Miami 1<\/p>\n
Nov. 1: FC Dallas 1, Vancouver Whitecaps 1 (Vancouver wins 4-2 on PKs)<\/p>\n
Nov. 1: Portland Timbers 2, San Diego FC 2 (Portland wins 3-2 on PKs)<\/p>\n
Nov. 2: Columbus Crew 4, FC Cincinnati 0<\/p>\n
Nov. 2: Austin FC 1, LAFC 4<\/p>\n
Nov. 3: Seattle Sounders 4, Minnesota United 2<\/p>\n
Game Three<\/p>\n
Nov. 7: Charlotte FC 1, New York City FC 3<\/p>\n
Nov. 8: Minnesota United 3, Seattle Sounders 3 (Minnesota wins 7-6 on PKs)<\/p>\n
Nov. 8: FC Cincinnati 2, Columbus Crew 1<\/p>\n
Nov. 8: Inter Miami 4, Nashville SC 0<\/p>\n
Nov. 9: San Diego 4, Portland Timbers 0<\/p>\n
Conference semifinals (one match): Nov. 22-24<\/p>\n
Nov. 22: Vancouver Whitecaps 2, LAFC 2 AET (Vancouver wins 4-3 in PKs)<\/p>\n
Nov. 23: FC Cincinnati 0, Inter Miami 4<\/p>\n
Nov. 23: Philadelphia Union 0, NYCFC 1<\/p>\n
Nov. 24: San Diego FC 1, Minnesota United 0<\/p>\n
Conference finals (one match)<\/p>\n
Nov. 29: Inter Miami 5, NYCFC 1<\/p>\n
Nov. 29: San Diego FC 1, Vancouver Whitecaps 3<\/p>\n
2025 MLS Cup<\/p>\n
Dec. 6, 2:30 p.m. ET: Inter Miami vs. Vancouver Whitecaps<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The road to MLS Cup officially will go through Lionel Messi and Inter Miami. The Messi-led side will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[43957,8064,12815,43945,43947,43956,12817,43952,12818,11444,43955,12820,9494,43953,32885,11203,43958,43948,43946,43950,43949,43951,6533,11445,74,1254,76,75,1084,12816,1083,43954,43959,12819,40873],"class_list":["post-75754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-atlanta-united-fc","tag-austin-fc","tag-charlotte-fc","tag-chicago-fire","tag-club-de-foot-montreal","tag-colorado-rapids","tag-columbus-crew","tag-dc-united","tag-fc-cincinnati","tag-fc-dallas","tag-houston-dynamo","tag-inter-miami-cf","tag-los-angeles-fc","tag-los-angeles-galaxy","tag-minnesota-united-fc","tag-mls","tag-nashville-soccer-club","tag-new-england-revolution","tag-new-york-city-fc","tag-new-york-red-bulls","tag-orlando-city-sc","tag-philadelphia-union","tag-portland-timbers","tag-real-salt-lake","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-fc","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-jose-earthquakes","tag-seattle-sounders-fc","tag-soccer","tag-sporting-kc","tag-st-louis-city-sc","tag-toronto-fc","tag-vancouver-whitecaps-fc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}