Messi<\/a> provided assists for two goals and helped create another to spark wild celebrations before a rapturous home crowd at the Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale.<\/p>\n“This is the the moment that I’ve been waiting for, and that we as a team have been waiting for,” Messi, named MLS Cup Most Valuable Player, said afterwards.<\/p>\n
Miami took the lead after an early Edier Ocampo own goal but were left reeling by Ali Ahmed’s second half-equaliser for Vancouver.<\/p>\n
But Messi then laid on an assist for Argentina international team-mate Rodrigo De Paul to put Miami 2-1 up before supplying the pass for Tadeo Allende’s injury time goal that sealed victory.<\/p>\n
Miami’s first Major League Soccer crown provided glittering vindication for co-owner David Beckham, the former England and Manchester United star who had long dreamed of bringing success to Miami.<\/p>\n
“There was a lot of sleepless nights, but I always believed,” Beckham said afterwards. “I always believed in bringing the team here, and when I found the right partners I knew anything was possible.<\/p>\n
“We always promised our fans that we would bring success, and bring the best players, and today we’ve achieved that.”<\/p>\n
Vancouver — spearheaded by German legend Thomas Mueller — had looked the likelier victor after recovering from Ocampo’s eighth minute own goal to level through Ali Ahmed in the 60th minute.<\/p>\n
The Whitecaps almost took the lead moments after the equaliser, with Emmanuel Sabbi’s shot crashing off both posts in the 62nd minute as Miami escaped.<\/p>\n
Costly mistakes\u00a0<\/p>\n
But with the Whitecaps in complete control, the Canadians were stunned when Miami regained the lead after a blunder by midfielder Andres Cubas.<\/p>\n
Cubas took too long in possession and was robbed by Messi, who skipped clear before releasing De Paul to provide the clinical finish.<\/p>\n
Vancouver never recovered from that hammer blow and Miami started the party in injury time when Messi played in Allende for the third to make it 3-1.<\/p>\n
Whitecaps coach Jesper Sorensen said his team had never recovered after falling behind to De Paul’s goal against the run of play.<\/p>\n
“We made a few mistakes and they took advantage of them,” Sorensen said.<\/p>\n
“We made a mistake — the ball dropped for Messi and he made the pass to Rodrigo. A game is decided in a few moments, and when you play Miami, they have the players to take advantage of these moments.”<\/p>\n
The win marks the crowning achievement of Inter Miami since the club — which entered the league as an expansion club in 2020 — successfully lured World Cup-winner Messi to Miami in 2023.<\/p>\n
Saturday’s victory also heralded the end of an era for two key figures in Miami’s rise to the top of Major League Soccer, with Messi’s former Barcelona team-mates and Spanish internationals Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets heading into retirement.<\/p>\n
“That was one of the main objectives — to say goodbye to two good friends that are now stepping into a new life in retirement,” eight-time Ballon D’Or winner Messi said of Alba and Busquets’ triumphant farewell.<\/p>\n
“This was very special for them and the whole team. We say goodbye in the best way to two of the best players in football’s history.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Inter Miami celebrate after beating the Vancouver Whitecaps in the MLS Cup final on Saturday in Fort Lauderdale,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250,1660,42268],"class_list":["post-74321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-lionel-messi","tag-mls-title"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74321","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=74321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}