Down 1-0 on the scoreboard, down 2-0 in total goals in the series and needing three goals to advance, Inter Miami needed a most unlikely rally.<\/p>\n
Lionel Messi made it happen.<\/p>\n
Inter Miami is headed to the CONCACAF Champions Cup semifinals for the first time, after Messi \u2014 the eight-time Ballon d\u2019Or winner \u2014 led a dramatic three-goal comeback. He had two goals, including the clinching penalty kick in the 84th minute, to lift Inter Miami past LAFC 3-1 on Wednesday night and a 3-2 aggregate win in the two-leg series.
\n\u201cWe gave it our all,\u201d Inter Miami coach Javier Mascherano said. \u201cWe wanted it, we wanted to be in the semis, and I think it showed. … Many times luck has to be on your side, and we had it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe it was luck. Maybe it was Messi. Maybe it was both, The AP news reported.<\/p>\n
For Messi, the series clincher was a bit reminiscent of how he led Argentina past France in the World Cup final in 2022. He scored two goals in that match, one on a penalty kick \u2014 then also converted in the penalty-shot shootout that decided the final after it ended in a 3-3 tie. Those goals came against France\u2019s Hugo Lloris, who was also in net for LAFC on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
Lloris couldn\u2019t solve Messi in the World Cup final \u2014 and couldn\u2019t in this one, either. Messi simply waited for Lloris to move a bit on the penalty that put Inter Miami up 3-1, essentially freezing the keeper before gently sending the ball into the right side of the net.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Down 1-0 on the scoreboard, down 2-0 in total goals in the series and needing three goals to advance, Inter Miami needed a most unlikely rally. Lionel Messi made it happen. Inter Miami is headed to the CONCACAF Champions Cup semifinals for the first time, after Messi \u2014 the eight-time Ballon d\u2019Or winner \u2014 led …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46244,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46238\/revisions\/46244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}