Lionel Messi scored his MLS-leading 26th goal in the 83rd minute to lift visiting Inter Miami to a 2-1 victory over the New England Revolution on Sunday night that has major playoff seeding implications.<\/p>\n
Messi also assisted German Berterame\u2019s 69th-minute equalizer for Inter Miami (16-6-11, 59 points), which moved above New England (18-11-4, 58 points) into second place in the Eastern Conference with one regular-season match remaining.<\/p>\n
Telasco Segovia provided assists on both goals as the Herons snapped a two-match winless run.<\/p>\n
Daniel Gazdag scored in the 53rd minute for New England, which failed to extend its four-match winning streak and lost for the first time this season after being ahead or tied in the 75th minute.<\/p>\n
An 87th-minute apparent own goal for the Revolution was overturned after video review, with referee Sergii Boiko ruling Luca Langoni offside on the play.<\/p>\n
Messi was the primary architect of his own winner, picking up a loose ball about 30 yards from goal before slaloming through multiple New England defenders.<\/p>\n
Segovia also provided a critical touch to keep the play alive, shielding another defender while playing the ball back onto his captain\u2019s left foot for a clinical finish into the bottom left corner.<\/p>\n
New England started the second half better, and Peyton Miller set up its go-ahead goal brilliantly, beating Gonzalo Lujan on the dribble to get around the right corner and into the penalty area before sliding a pass toward the penalty spot.<\/p>\n
Ilay Feingold added a backheeled touch to set up the shot for Gazdag, who powered in his first-time shot past Dayne St. Clair from eight yards out.<\/p>\n
That sparked Miami into action. Messi forced Matt Turner into a diving stop in the 65th minute before Brooklyn Raines cleared Berterame\u2019s rebound effort off the line.<\/p>\n
Berterame leveled four minutes later.<\/p>\n
Segovia scooped a lofted pass into the penalty area for Messi, who reached it between two defenders but wasn\u2019t in position to send a header goalbound. Instead, he popped it airborne, allowing time for Berterame to arrive and power a more forceful downward effort beyond Turner into the bottom right corner.<\/p>\n
Chances were scant before halftime.<\/p>\n
Berterame forced Turner into a comfortable stop in the 28th minute. New England\u2019s best arrived nine minutes later, when Raines fired high on a one-time chance from close range.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi scored his MLS-leading 26th goal in the 83rd minute to lift visiting Inter Miami to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-444880","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\/444880","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=444880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}