{"id":64987,"date":"2025-11-30T02:48:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T02:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/64987\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T02:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T02:48:09","slug":"messis-inter-miami-advances-to-mls-cup-final-with-5-1-win-over-nycfc-in-east-final-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/64987\/","title":{"rendered":"Messi’s Inter Miami advances to MLS Cup final with 5-1 win over NYCFC in East final"},"content":{"rendered":"

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2013 Lionel Messi will play for another trophy. Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets clearly aren’t ready to begin their retirements, either.<\/p>\n

Tadeo Allande scored three goals \u2014 Alba<\/a> and Busquets<\/a>, a pair of longtime Messi teammates who will retire when this season ends, had the assists on his first two \u2014 and Inter Miami topped New York City FC 5-1 on Saturday night for the Eastern Conference title and a berth in the MLS Cup final.<\/p>\n

Mateo Silvetti scored in the 67th minute for Inter Miami, with Messi setting up that goal \u2014 the 405th assist of his career for club and country, which is generally believed to be the most in soccer history. Telasco Segovia scored off a heel pass from Alba in the 83rd minute to turn it into a runaway, and Allande finishing off the hat trick in the 89th minute was the final play.<\/p>\n

Inter Miami \u2014 the No. 3 seed in the East \u2014 will play host to either San Diego or Vancouver for the league title on Dec. 6 at 2:30 p.m. Eastern. San Diego and Vancouver play for the Western Conference title later Saturday night.<\/p>\n

It’ll be the first MLS final appearance for Inter Miami, which had never made it past the opening postseason round in any of its first five seasons. Messi’s club went 0-2 against Vancouver this season, losing both legs of a semifinal meeting in the CONCACAF Champions Cup by a 5-1 aggregate.<\/p>\n

Justin Haak scored in the 37th minute for NYCFC, which went 0-2-1 against Inter Miami this season.<\/p>\n

The win moves Inter Miami one step closer to another trophy, after winning the Leagues Cup in 2023 and the Supporters’ Shield as MLS’ top regular-season team last year. Messi, a World Cup champion for Argentina and now eight-time Ballon d\u2019Or winner, joined the team midway through the 2023 season when it was at the bottom of the MLS standings and in an 11-match winless streak.<\/p>\n

Now? The club’s brand is global, Messi’s No. 10 jersey in the club’s pink kit is sold all over the world, a new stadium near Miami International Airport<\/a> is on the way for next season, Messi is signed through 2028,<\/a> he seems like a lock to win his second consecutive MLS MVP award and the team is on the brink of an MLS title.<\/p>\n

Stars flock to see this team because of Messi; tennis great Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> was there Saturday night, as were some members of the U.S. women’s national team.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone in the world knows who Lionel Messi is. … I think everyone thought he would come in here and do exactly what he’s done,\u201d said U.S. women’s forward Lindsay Horan \u2014 whose Messi fandom goes back many years.<\/p>\n

Messi got struck along the left side of his head in the ninth minute and was briefly shaken up, remaining down near the center circle for a few seconds before eventually getting to his feet. He got tripped with Inter Miami on the attack about two minutes later, then took a direct kick from about 30 yards out \u2014 playing it into the box, but Silvetti\u2019s header was easily caught by NYCFC goalie Matt Freese.<\/p>\n

Inter Miami’s next chance came a minute later. This one was cashed in \u2014 a long pass from Busquets was controlled by Allende, who easily beat Freese from about 12 yards out for a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Allende struck again on a header off a long pass from Alba in the 23rd minute, making it 2-0. And after Messi set Silvetti up for the 3-1 lead, what essentially was a 25-minute or so countdown to a celebration was underway.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLS: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/major-league-soccer<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2013 Lionel Messi will play for another trophy. Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets clearly aren’t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[38563,249,251,250,1659,38564,38566,1660,26607,35759,15256,110,38565,10193],"class_list":{"0":"post-64987","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-lauderdale","8":"tag-carlos-alcaraz","9":"tag-fort-lauderdale","10":"tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","11":"tag-fort-lauderdale-news","12":"tag-jordi-alba","13":"tag-justin-haak","14":"tag-lindsay-horan","15":"tag-lionel-messi","16":"tag-mateo-silvetti","17":"tag-matt-freese","18":"tag-sergio-busquets","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-tadeo-allande","21":"tag-telasco-segovia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64987","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=64987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}