World Cup earlier this month,<\/a> but returned to winning ways thanks to a vintage performance from the 39-year-old.<\/p>\nArgentina captain Messi put Miami 2-1 up with a deflected free-kick prior to half-time, before taking control of the match in the second half.<\/p>\n
The eight-time Ballon d’Or winner added his second following a weaving run, secured his hat-trick with a dink over the onrushing goalkeeper, before adding a fourth in added time with another trademark free-kick.<\/p>\n
Messi also assisted Luis Suarez’s strike, with Miami’s scoring rounded off by goals from Casemiro and Alexander Shaw.<\/p>\n
It was the first time Messi had scored four goals in an MLS match and the ninth occasion he has hit four or more in a game during his illustrious career.<\/p>\n
He now has 18 MLS goals for the season, taking him past FC Dallas’ Petar Musa as the league’s top scorer.<\/p>\n
Defending MLS Cup champions Miami remain second in the Eastern Conference, 10 points behind Nashville FC.<\/p>\n
Messi’s performance left Inter Miami interim coach Guillermo Hoyos struggling for a description.<\/p>\n
“There are no words to describe such footballing beauty,” Hoyos said. <\/p>\n
“So much is going on that words simply fall short.<\/p>\n
“He is constantly looking for that goal, that play, that pass; I don’t think he’s an ordinary footballer. Analysing him, both as a player and as a person, goes so deep that you run out of words.”<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Messi said he was unsure how much longer he would continue<\/a> playing football following the death of his father Jorge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi scored four goals as Inter Miami thrashed Montreal 7-1 in Major League Soccer to end their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-385163","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\/385163","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=385163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}