![\"Lionel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-2237221541.jpg\")
Lionel Messi reacts during Inter Miami\u2019s 4-0 road win over New York City FC on Sept.24, 2025. Getty Images<\/p>\nFORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 Pascal Jansen may have summed up one of the biggest challenges that New York City FC will face Saturday against Inter Miami as succinctly as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c[Lionel] Messi is a league of its own, that\u2019s clear,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That has never felt more true than this postseason run for Messi and Inter Miami, which has rolled through the Chicago Fire and toppled No. 2 seed Cincinnati FC 4-0 to reach the Eastern Conference Finals. <\/p>\n
And Messi, widely considered one of soccer\u2019s greatest players, has had six goals and six assists in four postseason matches, while contributing to 71 of Inter Miami\u2019s goals in 2025 between the regular season and playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inter Miami\u2019s use of Messi as a false nine during the postseason has allowed Messi to seemingly be even more dangerous on the pitch, positioned in the middle of Tadeo Allende and Mateo Silvetti. <\/p>\n
It has allowed Messi more freedom and has contributed to the offensive output of both Silvetti and Allende.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s just a full team effort,\u201d Kevin O\u2019Toole said about shutting down Messi. \u201cIntensity in the midfield and covering ground, and making sure that he doesn\u2019t have so much time to face forward and look to play balls in behind us or run at us. It\u2019s just a collective effort every time, just closing out the areas that he pops up in, and doing the best we can limiting him, because he\u2019s going to have his moments throughout games. That\u2019s inevitable.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has throughout his entire career, as we\u2019ve all seen, so, yeah, it\u2019ll take a collective to try to slow him down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lionel Messi reacts during Inter Miami\u2019s 4-0 road win over New York City FC on Sept.24, 2025. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Inter Miami\u2019s success goes beyond just the star power of Messi. <\/p>\n
Silvetti has a goal and an assist since head coach Javier Mascherano opted to keep the 19-year-old in the starting lineup over star Luis Su\u00e1rez.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Allende has found the back of the net twice in the past two matches and the Miami roster features plenty of talent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people can assume it\u2019s Messi against all these other teams, but that\u2019s not the case. They have great players, whoever they want to play in the starting 11,\u201d Jansen said.<\/p>\n
![\"Lionel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-2237217526.jpg\")
Lionel Messi runs with the ball against Nicolas Fernandez (7) during Inter Miami\u2019s win over NYCFC on Sept. 24, 2025. Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks like the team is in a good place at the moment, scoring a lot of goals, slightly different game plan,\u201d the NYCFC coach later explained. \u201cWe have to take all those things into account.\u201d<\/p>\n
The firepower behind Inter Miami has painted New York City FC \u2014 which fell to Miami 4-0 at Citi field in their last meeting in September \u2014 as the underdog, which is a narrative that has followed them in the playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
NYCFC have been the lower seed throughout the postseason run and being without leading goal scorer Alonso Martinez and midfielder Andr\u00e9s Perea has only helped feed into that. Nevertheless, it\u2019s not something that the team has bought into.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t look at us as underdogs. I don\u2019t know who did that, but that wasn\u2019t me or us around here,\u201d Tayvon Grey told The Post. \u201cI\u2019d like to think both teams have a chance. That\u2019s really it, it\u2019s up for grabs right now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Though the perception may be there, NYCFC has turned plenty of heads during the playoffs. <\/p>\n
They\u2019ve been a true definition of road warriors, having lost just one of their last nine matches away from the five boroughs and NYCFC is the only club in the postseason to win three times on the road.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not a word that I\u2019ve been using,\u201d Jansen said when asked about the underdog label. \u201cThat\u2019s something that has been used by the outside world. It is what it is. I think we have earned our right to be in this final, and we\u2019re going to give it everything we have in order to get a good result against Miami.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mascherano stressed NYCFC\u2019s success to his club Friday during training, he told reporters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to understand that even though we earned home-field advantage, Saturday\u2019s game will be very difficult,\u201d he said. \u201cOur mentality and our vision in this next game is we must go for it from the opening minute, the way we did against Nashville and Cincinnati.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 Pascal Jansen may have summed up one of the biggest challenges that New York…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1660,123,125,124,5427,17142,2062,110],"class_list":["post-64401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-lionel-messi","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-mls-playoffs","tag-new-york-city-fc","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64401","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=64401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}