tragic passing of his father, Jorge Messi.<\/a><\/p>\nThe club was also without Luis Suarez, who is serving a six-game suspension stemming from last season\u2019s Leagues Cup final.<\/p>\n
With Messi unavailable, academy forward Lovens Delinois made his first-team debut alongside fellow academy forward Daniel Pinter.<\/p>\n
Before kickoff, the stadium held a moment of silence for Messi\u2019s late father, with players, coaches and fans paying their respects.<\/p>\n
Once the match got underway, it was a back-and-forth affair, with both teams showing plenty of aggression in attack.<\/p>\n
Miami nearly opened the scoring in spectacular fashion. A dangerous buildup led to a clear shot on goal, but the Monterrey goalkeeper came up with a fantastic save. The rebound fell to another Miami player, only for the keeper to make another acrobatic stop. Somehow, he made a third save moments later, keeping Miami off the scoresheet and forcing a corner.<\/p>\n
The sequence gave Rayados a huge momentum boost, and the Mexican side quickly turned up the pressure, earning a corner of its own.<\/p>\n
Miami dealt with the corner and quickly went the other way. The clearance sparked a fast-break opportunity, but Telasco Segovia\u2019s shot narrowly missed the net.<\/p>\n
Monterrey responded with a dangerous passing sequence that eventually led to a shot on goal, but Rocco Rios Novo was there to make the save.<\/p>\n
Then, out of nowhere, stand-in captain Rodrigo De Paul delivered a moment of magic.<\/p>\n
De Paul unleashed a stunning strike from outside the box, curling the ball into the bottom-left corner and just beyond the reach of the Rayados goalkeeper to give Miami a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Immediately after scoring, De Paul removed his jersey to reveal a Messi jersey underneath. He dedicated the goal to his teammate and Messi\u2019s late father, Jorge. De Paul was shown a yellow card for excessive celebration.<\/p>\n
The goal did little to slow Rayados. Monterrey continued to pressure Miami\u2019s defense, forcing Novo into another massive save to preserve the lead.<\/p>\n
Miami took its 1-0 advantage into halftime.<\/p>\n
The lead, however, lasted only two minutes into the second half.<\/p>\n
Before many fans had even returned to their seats, Monterrey found the equalizer in the 47th minute, scoring off a rebound from another Novo save. Miami\u2019s advantage disappeared in an instant.<\/p>\n
After the equalizer, both sides had opportunities, but neither could find the breakthrough. The score remained deadlocked at 1-1 through the 60th minute.<\/p>\n
From there, the match became a cagey, gritty battle, with neither team able to consistently create dangerous chances.<\/p>\n
Had the match ended 1-1 after regulation, it would have gone to a penalty shootout to determine the winner.<\/p>\n
With five minutes remaining, both teams appeared content to see the match head toward penalties. Sloppy passes and fouls became more frequent as the intensity increased.<\/p>\n
The sloppiness continued, resulting in a flurry of yellow cards, with three handed out in a span of four minutes.<\/p>\n
Then came the heartbreak for Miami.<\/p>\n
Poor defending left Monterrey\u2019s Diego Rossi with a wide-open chance in the final moments, and he made no mistake, giving the Mexican side a 2-1 lead.<\/p>\n
The goal instantly sucked the energy out of the crowd.<\/p>\n
Miami could not find another equalizer, falling 2-1 and suffering its first loss since May 2.<\/p>\n
Inter Miami will look to bounce back Wednesday in its final Leagues Cup group-stage match against Le\u00f3n.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2014 In the second match of the Leagues Cup, Inter Miami CF fell 2-1 to Mexican club…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-366615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366615","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=366615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}