Messi leads Inter Miami to 3-1 win over Orlando in high-charged Leagues Cup semi
Inter Miami, embarrassed twice by Orlando City this season, was determined to get revenge the third time around in a high-charged, high-stakes Leagues Cup semifinal.
Mission accomplished, thanks to (who else?) Lionel Messi.
All of the team’s stars were in the starting lineup Wednesday night and Messi, returning from a hamstring injury, electrified the Chase Stadium crowd with a pair of goals in the span of 11 minutes to put Miami ahead late in the game. Telasco Segovia added another in added time for the 3-1 victory.
Miami advanced to the Leagues Cup final on the road Sunday at 8 p.m. against the Seattle Sounders at Lumen Field. The game will be shown on Apple TV MLS Season Pass and on Univision and TUDN in Spanish. Both finalists earn berths in the 2026 Concacaf Champions Cup and the winner gets a bye until the Round of 16.
“I wanted to come back, ever since the Galaxy game, when I felt a discomfort and was uncomfortable but I prepared for this game because I knew how important it was, against this rival, whom we had not beaten in two games this year,” Messi told Apple TV after the match. “The first half I was a still little tentative, but the second half I got looser.”
Just when it seemed Miami would lose to its nemesis for the third time this year, Messi came to the rescue. He scored the equalizer with a penalty kick in the 77th minute.
Tadeo Allende, who came in as a sub midway through the second half, drew the foul in the box when he collected a long cross from Jordi Alba and lunged toward the goal as his jersey was tugged by Orlando’s David Brekalo. It was the second yellow card for the left back, who was ejected as the ball went to the spot for Messi. Orlando keeper Pedro Gallese guessed correctly, but Messi calmly placed the ball into the lower right corner.
Messi was immediately swarmed by his teammates. The Miami bench and the home crowd erupted. The superstar No. 10 then ran to a field-level suite and hugged his sons.
But he wasn’t done. Eleven minutes later, Messi scored the go-ahead goal after a slick give and go with Alba in tight spaces. The stadium went wild and pink smoke filled the air.
“We are at a loss of words when it comes to discussing Leo,” Miami assistant coach Javi Morales said of Messi. “He trained only two or three days and then [Wednesday] he played 90 minutes and the way he played, created situations, scoring goals. There is nothing more to say. For us, and for the fans, it’s a privilege to have him on our team.”
Segovia, the talented young Venezuelan, came off the bench and added another insurance goal with an assist from Luis Suarez.
After the game, Orlando coach Oscar Pareja complained about Brekalo’s first yellow card, when he was called for a foul against Rodrigo De Paul. He also felt his team should have been awarded a penalty kick when Ivan Angulo went down in the box as he was being defended by Sergio Busquets.
“Certain decisions and actions outside the game affected the team,” he said. “The yellow card for Brekalo wasn’t a yellow. In the first half, we played well and had control of the game, but in the second half those decisions affected us. I think it was obvious.”
Messi returned to action after missing two games with a mild hamstring injury. Alba was back after a one-game injury absence. Suarez, Busquets and De Paul were in the Starting XI after resting the first 50 minutes of the league game against D.C. United over the weekend.
Also starting in the match were Oscar Ustari, Gonzalo Lujan, Ian Fray, Maxi Falcon, Yannick Bright, and Baltasar Rodriguez, the 21-year-old Argentine making second MLS start after scoring a golazo off the bench in a 1-1 tie against D.C.
It was a showdown between the league’s two highest scoring teams, with both Miami and Orlando having scored 54 goals so far this season. Both delivered an entertaining first half for the spirited Chase Stadium crowd and it appeared they would head into intermission scoreless after Orlando’s Ivan Angula missed a golden 1-on-1 chance against Ustari, but Marco Pasalic struck for the visitors in stoppage time.
Luis Muriel sent the ball into the area, Pasalic controlled a rebound with his chest and his powerful left-footed shot sailed over Ustari into the top right corner. Orlando players celebrated while the home crowd went silent.
Mascherano was serving a red card suspension and watched the game from a third-level team box. He was required by tournament officials to sit much farther up the stadium than the front row, where he spent the second half of the Tigres game after his expulsion last week. Mascherano was seen on TV pumping his fists in the air as his team secured the hard-fought win.
Mascherano, who was in communication with the bench during the game, made a few tactical changes at halftime, according to Morales, and the moves made the difference.
“The first half was even, and they had more chances than us, but we were in communication with Javier upstairs, he tweaked a few things and the second half was a different game,” Morales said.
One of Mascherano’s biggest decisions was taking a defensive risk by pulling center back Lujan with the team trailing 1-0 and replacing him with Segovia, an attacker. Morales explained that Mascherano had a better view of the field from up above than on the sideline, the team needed to be aggressors and try to get on the scoreboard, and he felt Segovia could add that extra weapon.
Pareja conceded that Inter Miami began attacking higher in the second half, pinning Orlando’s defense back, and that worked in Miami’s favor.
The rivalry between the teams has been heated since Miami joined the league six years ago, and it intensified in late July 2023, when a Messi-themed mural in Wynwood was vandalized with purple paint shortly after the Argentine icon made his MLS debut in the Leagues Cup.
The message “FL is Purple” was written on the mural, a clue that the culprits were fans of intrastate rival Orlando City.
A few weeks later, when the teams met in the Leagues Cup Round of 32, Messi scored a pair of goals, mixed it up with an Orlando player, jawed with the referee and was issued a yellow card during the 3-1 Miami victory.
This time, the stakes were higher and Miami was especially motivated as Orlando beat the men in pink twice this regular season, 3-0 in Fort Lauderdale in mid-May and 4-1 a few weeks ago in Orlando.
And, Messi delivered once again. The men in pink are one win away from lifting the Leagues Cup trophy for the second time in three years.
This story was originally published August 27, 2025 at 9:04 PM.