{"id":424645,"date":"2026-10-11T04:24:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T04:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/424645\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T04:24:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T04:24:15","slug":"messi-scores-twice-in-first-game-since-argentina-retirement-inter-miami-beat-dc-united","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/424645\/","title":{"rendered":"Messi scores twice in first game since Argentina retirement, Inter Miami beat DC United"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MIAMI (AP) \u2014 Lionel Messi scored two goals to give him a league-leading 23 this season, and Inter Miami beat D.C. United 4-0 on Saturday night.<\/p>\n<p>Luis Su\u00e1rez also scored twice and Germ\u00e1n Berterame had two assists for Inter Miami, which snapped a five-match winless skid. Miami had four draws and one loss before Saturday\u2019s outburst.<\/p>\n<p>Four days after playing his <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/lionel-messi-argentina-benin-a732d7dbc2c2095cc74e09097ac1878f\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">farewell match<\/a> that ended a 21-year tenure with the Argentine national team, Messi played the entire 90 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>The win was Miami\u2019s first since a 7-1 rout of CF Montreal on Aug. 29. It was also the first league win for new coach Cristian \u201cKily\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez, who took over Sept. 16.<\/p>\n<p>D.C. United is winless in its last five matches.<\/p>\n<p>Messi scored his first in the 47th minute after Su\u00e1rez tallied twice in the first half to give Inter Miami a 2-0 lead at the break. Su\u00e1rez centered a pass near the 6-yard box, where Messi retrieved it and tapped in a shot inside the right post.<\/p>\n<p>Inter Miami padded its lead when Messi struck again in the 60th minute. He received Rodrigo De Paul\u2019s pass, dribbled inside the large area and eluded two United defenders to beat goalkeeper Sean Johnson with a shot from 12 yards.<\/p>\n<p>Inter Miami\u2019s first scoring threat resulted in Su\u00e1rez\u2019s goal three minutes into the match. Su\u00e1rez received Berterame\u2019s header and beat Johnson with a shot that landed inside the left post.<\/p>\n<p>Su\u00e1rez made it 2-0 with his second goal in the 39th minute. Johnson deflected Messi\u2019s point-blank shot to an open Berterame, who fed Su\u00e1rez with another header that he retrieved inside the 6-yard box. Su\u00e1rez then tapped in a shot for his brace.<\/p>\n<p>Up next<\/p>\n<p>Inter Miami hosts New York City FC on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n<p>D.C. United faces the New York Red Bulls on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/soccer\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">See AP\u2019s full soccer coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI (AP) \u2014 Lionel Messi scored two goals to give him a league-leading 23 this season, and Inter&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10073,123,125,124,2062,109,110],"class_list":["post-424645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-inter-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-soccer","tag-social","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424645","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=424645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}