Messi drilled a left-footed free kick<\/a> that ricocheted its way past Matt Freese for his fourth goal this season. It was Messi\u2019s 54th goal in his 58th MLS appearance. The Argentine legend has scored 901 goals in his illustrious international and club career.<\/p>\n\t\t![\"NEW](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/gettyimages-2267864164-69c070f6f27ff.jpg\"\/ "\\"New")
<\/p>\n
\n\t\tGetty ImagesJordan Bank\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNEW YORK, NEW YORK – MARCH 22: Lionel Messi #10 of Inter Miami CF controls the ball whilst under pressure from Nicolas Fernandez #7 of New York City FC during the MLS match between New York City FC and Inter Miami CF at Yankee Stadium on March 22, 2026, in New York, New York. (Photo by Jordan Bank\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Messi\u2019s corner kick in the 74th minute helped set up a header by Micael and Inter Miami took a 3-2 lead. Noah Allen and David Ayala assisted on Micael\u2019s first goal with his new team.<\/p>\n
Dayne St. Claire turned away three shots on goal for Inter Miami in his first season with the defending MLS Cup champions. He has surrendered eight goals in his four starts.<\/p>\n
Matt Freese had five saves for NYCFC.<\/p>\n
Messi had shots bounce off the post and crossbar in the first half.<\/p>\n
NYCFC leads the series 7-4-4, but Miami has gone 3-0-4 in the last seven matchups.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Miami: Hosts Austin FC on April 4.<\/p>\n
New York: Hosts St. Louis City on April 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi scored the equalizer off a free kick in the second half before helping to set up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85644,93048,93044,93045,190,10073,1660,35759,86334,14236,123,125,124,78437,93043,93047,26609,93046,1100,189],"class_list":["post-201792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-agustin-ojeda","tag-career-appearance","tag-early-lead","tag-free-kick","tag-goal","tag-inter-miami","tag-lionel-messi","tag-matt-freese","tag-maxi-moralez","tag-messi","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-micael","tag-micael-dos-santos-spark-inter-miami-to-come-from-behind-3-2-victory-over-nycfc","tag-newsnicolas-fernandez","tag-nycfc","tag-santos","tag-season","tag-wpbf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}