Less than two minutes after coming on as a second-half substitute, Lionel Messi scored his second goal of the season, and Inter Miami held on to defeat the visiting Philadelphia Union 2-1.
After suffering an adductor strain during Miami’s most recent Major League Soccer (MLS) match, a 2-1 victory at Atlanta on March 16, the 37-year-old star had missed Argentina’s World Cup qualifying matches in South America during the most recent international window.
After Jordi Alba broke down the left flank, Finnish winger Robert Taylor scored a low pass from Benjamin Cremaschi to give Miami the lead in the twenty-third minute of Saturday’s match.
Coach Javier Mascherano substituted Messi in the 55th minute, and he scored right away. Messi was selected on the right by Luis Suarez, a former Barcelona teammate, and he ducked to create space before putting a low right-footed effort into the far corner.
Hungarian midfielder Daniel Gazdag brought the ball down before putting in a clean shot in the 80th minute after Quinn Sullivan whipped in a cross from the right, giving Philadelphia a goal back.
Unbeaten With four victories from their first five games of the season, Miami leads the Eastern Conference.
Inter will have a busy week ahead of them as they travel to Los Angeles for the first leg of their quarterfinal CONCACAF Champions Cup matchup against LAFC on Wednesday. The following Sunday, they play at home against Toronto, and three days later, they play again against LAFC.
Mascherano claimed that starting with Messi on the bench had been a calculated decision.
“We didn’t want to risk him from the start because we thought he might be at risk playing the whole game, but we did want him to get some minutes,” said the Argentine coach.
“The plan is that he can recover and travel to Los Angeles. He played today because he was fine. Maybe he wasn’t ready for the full 90 minutes but it was good for him to play 45 minutes. If nothing unusual happens the plan is for him to travel,” he added.
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