{"id":283325,"date":"2026-05-25T04:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T04:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/283325\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T04:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T04:36:14","slug":"lionel-messi-heads-straight-to-locker-room-during-inter-miamis-final-game-before-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/283325\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi heads straight to locker room during Inter Miami’s final game before World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

A wild matchup between Inter Miami<\/a> and Philadelphia Union<\/a> took a turn in the second half, with Miami captain Lionel Messi<\/a> leaving the game early and immediately heading into the locker room.<\/p>\n

Messi took a free kick and immediately grabbed at the back of his leg; he then asked for a sub and exited the game in the 73rd minute. The severity of any potential injury is currently unclear, but it appears that Messi went back into the locker room for treatment.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s game had one of the wildest first halves in MLS history, with Inter Miami and Philadelphia entering halftime tied 4-4. The Union went up 3-1 in the 20th minute after an early patch of goals, but goals from Germ\u00e1n Berterame and Luis Su\u00e1rez<\/a> gave Miami a slight lead. Milan Iloski<\/a> ended with a first-half hat trick, after scoring a second penalty kick in first-half stoppage time to tie the game.<\/p>\n

With all the goals and the penalties, that first-half stoppage time was particularly long. There was a brief stoppage as the referee\u2019s shoe completely broke apart.<\/p>\n

The two teams stayed scoreless for much of the second half. But shortly after Messi exited, Su\u00e1rez completed a hat trick with a go-ahead goal in the 81st minute. Rodrigo dePaul then added another in stoppage time to give Miami a 6-4 win.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The result ties four other games for the second-highest scoring game in MLS history, with 10 total goals.<\/p>\n

Sunday marks Inter Miami\u2019s final game before MLS pauses for the World Cup. Messi is expected to return as Argentina\u2019s captain as the reigning champions prepare to defend their title, though the final roster has yet to be announced ahead of FIFA\u2019s June 1 deadline. Messi has not indicated whether he will play in what would be a sixth World Cup<\/p>\n

Postgame, Inter Miami head coach Guillermo Hoyos said that they don\u2019t have more information on Messi\u2019s potential injury at this time, but that they \u201cdidn\u2019t want to risk anything\u201d by keeping him out there, via The Athletic\u2019s Tom Bogert<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A wild matchup between Inter Miami and Philadelphia Union took a turn in the second half, with Miami…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[120438,10073,1660,1658,123,125,124,115079,120440,14193,120439],"class_list":["post-283325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-fox-soccer","tag-inter-miami","tag-lionel-messi","tag-luis-suarez","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-milan-iloski","tag-mls-history","tag-philadelphia-union","tag-the-locker-room"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283325","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=283325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}