Messi hadn’t scored a competitive goal since Argentina’s World Cup final loss to Spain, and it took him just eleven minutes into Wednesday’s game to end that drought for good.
Inter Miami’s captain scored twice in a 4-2 win over Atletico San Luis, ESPN reported, and the second goal did more than open the Leagues Cup with a rout. It made him the tournament’s all-time leading scorer, 14 goals in 12 matches, one ahead of LAFC’s Denis Bouanga. Messi set a new Leagues Cup scoring record before the halftime whistle.
San Luis actually scored first. David Rodriguez headed one in during the fourth minute, and for about seven minutes Miami looked like a team still shaking off a month-long layoff without him. Then Noah Allen found Messi with a long cross, and Messi met it with a volley that beat the goalkeeper and tied him with Bouanga on the spot.
Thirty-three minutes later, the World Cup he just came back from already a distant memory, Allen set him up again. Messi weaved through two defenders in the box and finished from close range to break the record outright. It was his alone now.
That’s the part worth sitting with. Messi’s Leagues Cup record now sits inside a tournament that’s only four years old, which means a record book barely old enough to matter is already being written by one player in real time.
Allen recorded three assists on the night, a career high, two of them setting up Messi’s goals. Telasco Segovia and defender Micael also scored for Miami, Micael’s coming on a stoppage-time header that Messi himself set up. Miami led 4-1 at the break and cruised from there, even after a lightning delay stopped the second half for half an hour.
Rafa Llorente got San Luis a consolation goal.
None of it changed the outcome.
Miami’s interim coach Guillermo Hoyos was not shy about the first goal afterward: “He struck the ball out of the air. If we were talking about painting, it would be Picasso.”
My mom, who does not follow soccer and has never once initiated a conversation about a box score, texted me during the second half asking if “the World Cup guy” was still good. I told her he’s now the answer to a trivia question that didn’t exist five years ago. She said that was nice and asked if I’d eaten dinner.
Miami needed this more than the highlight suggests. Luis Suarez is out for six matches after spitting at a Seattle Sounders staffer, which left the attack leaning on Messi even before he did this to a defense that had a game plan for exactly one player and still couldn’t stop him.
Here’s the tweet Inter Miami posted that night:
https://twitter.com/InterMiamiCF/status/2085162408117448743
Eight straight matches unbeaten now, and none of it looks close to slowing down. The rest of our soccer coverage will be here if you want more of this before the next record falls.
The “is he done” question dies again, right on schedule.
