Lionel Messi, Inter Miami endure first-round MLS Cup playoff exit

Lionel Messi is out of the MLS Cup playoffs.

Messi and Inter Miami, the trophy favourite and Supporters Protect winner who set a report for normal season factors in 2024, have been eradicated from MLS Cup competition on Saturday by ninth-seeded Atlanta United, which shocked Miami 3-2 at house within the closing match of the primary spherical, best-of-three-game sequence.

Miami took an early lead earlier than falling behind later within the first half. Messi pulled the hosts stage halfway via the second, however Atlanta midfielder Bartosz Slisz scored the eventual game-winner with a few quarter-hour of standard time remaining:

As he has been all through the postseason, Guzan, the 40-year-old former English Premier League and U.S. nationwide staff veteran and the second-oldest energetic participant in MLS, was a brick wall in objective for his staff.

Guzan made eight saves on Saturday, together with a number of stops on Messi. Miami started the match with out Sergio Busquets, Messi’s longtime teammate at Spanish membership Barcelona. Busquets, who had skilled flu-like signs on the eve of the competition, got here off the bench shortly after Slisz’s objective however could not assist his squad discover a third.

Miami’s first-round exit is a major blow for Messi, who earlier this month referred to as profitable the American and Canadian League’s most coveted prize the Herons’ No. 1 precedence.

“That is the actual title that we wish, MLS Cup,” Messi stated on the eve of the playoffs in an interview with 433. “We will battle for that.” 

Messi’s second season in america was a marked enchancment on his first, although, when he arrived mid-season six months faraway from a legacy cementing 2022 World Cup win and immediately propelled Miami to the inaugural Leagues Cup crown forward of 46 different MLS and top-flight Mexican groups.

However the GOAT received injured down the stench in 2023, and Miami missed the playoffs. Tata Martino’s aspect was the pole-setter from begin to end this yr, nevertheless, even with out the Argentine legend, who missed a 3rd of the season both representing the Albiceleste or recovering from the ankle damage he suffered within the Copa América title match that Argentina received in July.

Even with out MLS Cup, this season was successful for Messi and Inter Miami. Along with incomes an unprecedented 74 common season factors, the Supporters’ Protect triumph prompted international soccer’s governing physique FIFA to award the Herons a berth in subsequent yr’s expanded Membership World Cup. Miami will host the opening match of that competitors at Exhausting Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.

Messi, who’s coming into the ultimate yr of his MLS contract, is anticipated to affix his nationwide staff subsequent week for World Cup qualifiers towards Paraguay and Peru. 

Miami’s 2025 season kicks off subsequent February.

Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports activities. A employees author with ESPN and Yahoo Sports activities earlier than becoming a member of FOX Sports activities in 2021, he has coated United States males’s and ladies’s nationwide groups at FIFA World Cups on 5 continents. Observe him @ByDougMcIntyre.