The Argentine legend, Lionel Messi has cemented his supremacy with an impressive Major League Soccer (MLS) debut performance for his new club Inter Miami as he led the team to a resounding victory against New York Red Bulls at Red Bull Arena on Saturday. Messi contributed to the dominating 2-0 win with a brilliant goal in the 89th minute for the second goal of the night, kicking off his Major League career with a bang!
This was Messi’s 11th goal in all competitions since joining Miami this summer and sealed the club’s first win in the circuit since May 13. Before Messi sealed the win, Miami had been 0-8-3 in its previous 11 MLS matches. The seven-time Ballon d’Or winner was sent in as a substitute to replace Leonardo Campana in the 60th minute, where he was greeted with huge cheers from the crowd in attendance.
The 36-year-old has been off the grid for some time as he did not participate in warmup matches and was on the bench during the first half of the match along with forward Josef Martinez, midfielder Sergio Busquets, and defender DeAndre Yedlin until coach Tata Martinosent him in in the second half.
The opening goal of the match came in the first half when Diego Gomez scored from the center of the box to the bottom right corner following a sublime assist by Noah Allen to give Miami an early lead in the 37th minute. The Bulls came close to getting the equalizer just before the end of the first half when they were awarded a penalty spot in the 44th minute. However, after multiple VAR checks, the penalty call was overturned, much to the disappointment of the players and the home crowd.
The Messi Magic occurred in the dying minutes of the match when Jordi Alba acrobatically hooked the ball into the box to Messi who twisted and turned then slipped a sublime pass with the outside of his foot to Benjamin Cremaschi whose low first-time cross was tapped in by the seven-times Ballon d’Or winner.
The match was almost equally matched in terms of ball possession, with Miami maintaining roughly 51% of the possession and the New Yorkers having about 49% possession. But Miami was the more attacking side, firing 13 shots against just 6 by the hosts, out of which 4 shots were on target, 2 of which got converted.
The win over the New York Red Bulls helped Inter Miami jump from the last spot to the 14th place in the MLS standings with 21 points. Toronto FC and the Colorado Rapids are tied for the fewest points in MLS with 19 points.
The top nine teams in each conference qualify for the playoffs, and Inter Miami has some work to do to get in position for a playoff spot; they are 11 points behind ninth-place Chicago Fire FC.
