Doug McIntyre
Soccer Journalist
Lionel Messi was the star of last week’s frigid Concacaf Champions Cup first-round opener between Inter Miami and Sporting Kansas City, scoring the only goal in a 1-0 Miami win.
In the decisive second leg in balmy South Florida on Tuesday, the GOAT stole the show again with another, significantly more spectacular game-winner to help the Herons advance to the regional club championship’s round of 16.
Messi started the play he’d end up finishing with a long diagonal pass to former Barcelona teammate Luis Suárez on the left wing. Suárez ran towards the visitors’ penalty box, then spotted Messi all alone trailing the play on the opposite side. The World Cup winner expertly chested down the lofted feed and half-volleyed the ball past helpless SKC keeper John Pulskamp.
Messi’s 19th minute strike put Miami up 2-0 on aggregate. It also opened the floodgates for the hosts. Inter, which reached the Concacaf quarterfinals last season before beng eliminated by Mexican power Monterrey, scored twice more before the half was finished.
First, Jordi Alba set up Messi’s fellow Argentinean Tadeo Allende. Suárez then took advantage of some truly horrendous defending by Kansas City to put the series out of reach — if it wasn’t already — with a third goal that gave Miami a 4-0 aggregate lead in the total-goals-wins home-and-home.
Memo Rodríguez pulled one back for Sporting in the second half but Peter Vermes’ team got no closer. With the outcome beyond doubt and after consecutive 90-minute appearances by Messi, the 37-year-old World Cup-winner was substituted not long after the hour mark by coach Javier Mascherano.
Miami will face Jamaican club Cavalier in the last 16. The first leg of that series, which will also be broadcast by FOX Sports, is scheduled for March 6, with the return match the following week. Messi & Co. are hoping to become just the third MLS club to claim the Concacaf title this century. In 2022, the Seattle Sounders snapped Mexico’s 16-year stranglehold on the competition, which features the top club sides from domestic leagues across North and Central America and the Caribbean.
It’s been back to the status quo in the years since then, though, with Liga MX teams defeating MLS rivals to hoist the trophy in 2023 and 2024. Pachuca outlasted the then-MLS Cup champion Columbus Crew in last year’s stand-alone championship south of the border.
Miami kicked off the 2025 MLS season last Saturday with a 2-2 tie against New York City FC at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale. Messi assisted on both goals. The Herons return to league action on Sunday, when they travel to Texas to take on the Houston Dynamo.
Doug McIntyre is a soccer writer for FOX Sports who has covered the United States men’s and women’s national teams at FIFA World Cups on five continents. Follow him at @ByDougMcIntyre.
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