Lionel Messi was at his best on his Major League Soccer debut for the Inter Miami FC as he scored a goal in the 89th minute to help his club take 2-0 lead over opponents New York Red Bulls. Inter Miami eventually won the match by the same margin, to end the 11-match winless streak of the team. Messi is the biggest superstar of football world to join the MLS after later Brazilian legend Pele,w ho has joined the league 48 years ago to kickstart football in United States of America.
Messi entered in the 60th minute of the match and by the 90th minute, he had scored his first goal of the tournament. Messi pulled it off thanks to help from his former Barcelona teammates Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba. Busquets have a cross to Alba who made an acrobatic leap. Messi received the ball in the centre and dribbled it to Benjamin Cremaschi, who beat defender John Tolkin and touched the ball back to Messi who netted the ball to score his first goal of MLS.
Watch the Messi goal here:
LIONEL MESSI, THE PASS, THE GOAL!pic.twitter.com/u9hGXkZzoG
— Roy Nemer (@RoyNemer) August 27, 2023
But soon after the match was over, Messi also created a controversy by not attending the reporters conference. As per MPL rules, players need to be available after the games to speak to the media but Messi was not there to speak. Dan Courtemanche, who is MLS’s executive vice president of communications, said before the game that Messi, like all players, was required to be available to media after games. Courtemanche said MLS had a progressive series of penalties for violations of its media access rules.
Miami spokeswoman Molly Dreska said after the match that Messi was not being made available to reporters. Will Messi face a sanction for skipping speaking to the reporters? We will know that soon.
Messi was, of course, the star attraction at the Red Bull arena wherein the fans had occupied all the seats. The Messi effect in American can be guaged from the fact that a record crowd of 26,275 was reported, which was the first home sellout this season for Red Bulls despite the fact that the tickets cost over $1000.
Messi chants were heard the moment the Argentine legend walked inside to do some warm-up sessions. Messi played his first Miami game on July 21 in the Leagues Cup and scored 10 goals in seven games in that competition and a U.S. Open Cup semifinal.
