{"id":63039,"date":"2025-12-07T01:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T01:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/63039\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T01:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T01:49:10","slug":"lionel-messi-inter-miami-win-2025-mls-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/63039\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi, Inter Miami win 2025 MLS Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 Lionel Messi\u2019s legacy was long secured when he came to Inter Miami and joined Major League Soccer. <\/p>\n<p>He\u2019d won a World Cup, won dozens of trophies, was generally considered the greatest player in the sport\u2019s history.<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t need\u00a0an MLS Cup.<\/p>\n<p>But he wanted one \u2014 and got it.<\/p>\n<p>Messi and Inter Miami have completed their ascent, beating the Vancouver Whitecaps 3-1 on Saturday in the MLS Cup final for the franchise\u2019s first championship. It came 2 1\/2 years after the legend arrived\u00a0in South Florida, a move that stunned plenty of onlookers at the time.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"37862315\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2250404599.jpg\" alt=\"Lionel Messi #10 of Inter Miami CF celebrates winning the Audi 2025 MLS Cup Final match between Inter Miami CF and Vancouver Whitecaps FC at Chase Stadium on December 06, 2025 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.\" class=\"wp-image-37862315\"  \/>Lionel Messi of Inter Miami CF celebrates winning the Audi 2025 MLS Cup Final match between Inter Miami CF and Vancouver Whitecaps FC at Chase Stadium on December 6, 2025 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>He set up the title-clinching goal with a 72nd-minute assist to Rodrigo De Paul, a play where Messi stole the ball and threaded a pass through a tiny gap in a wall of Vancouver defenders. <\/p>\n<p>De Paul got it in stride, pushed it into the far corner of the net \u2014 and Messi went airborne to hop into his arms a few seconds later, all smiles.<\/p>\n<p>And as the final minutes ticked away, Inter Miami\u2019s pink-clad fans \u2014 most wearing Messi\u2019s No. 10 on their backs \u2014 stood and stomped and cheered. <\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"37862316\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2250404486.jpg\" alt=\"Tadeo Allende #21 of Inter Miami CF celebrates with teammates after scoring the team's third goal during the Audi 2025 MLS Cup Final match between Inter Miami CF and Vancouver Whitecaps FC at Chase Stadium on December 06, 2025 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.\" class=\"wp-image-37862316\"  \/>Tadeo Allende of Inter Miami CF celebrates with teammates after scoring the team\u2019s third goal during the Audi 2025 MLS Cup Final match between Inter Miami CF and Vancouver Whitecaps FC at Chase Stadium on December 6, 2025 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>South Florida has seen NFL and NBA and Major League Baseball and NHL titles in the past.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a soccer town now, too. Messi made that happen. Tadeo Allende scored in the sixth minute of stoppage time \u2014 off another Messi assist, of course \u2014 to make it 3-1.<\/p>\n<p>Inter Miami became the 16th franchise in the league\u2019s 30-year history to win an MLS title. <\/p>\n<p>And this extends a run of parity for MLS, which has seen five different franchises win championships in the last five years and eight franchises claim a title in the last nine seasons \u2014 only Columbus has won twice in that span.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 Lionel Messi\u2019s legacy was long secured when he came to Inter Miami and joined&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28560,6583,401,9,11,10,400,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-63039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-lionel-messi","9":"tag-mls","10":"tag-mls-playoffs","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-soccer","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}