{"id":182260,"date":"2025-08-28T11:10:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T11:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/182260\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T11:10:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T11:10:09","slug":"lionel-messi-played-with-fear-in-leagues-cup-semifinal-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/182260\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi: ‘Played with fear’ in Leagues Cup semifinal win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lionel Messi<\/a> admitted to “playing with fear” as he returned from injury to score twice in Inter Miami’<\/a>s 3-1 Leagues Cup semifinal win<\/a> over Florida rivals Orlando City<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Messi converted a 77th-minute penalty at Chase Stadium and then added another goal in the 88th minute — after combining with Jordi Alba<\/a> — as Miami came back from a goal down to clinch a place in the final.<\/p>\n

“I wanted to be here,” Messi said after the game. “When I came back against [LA] Galaxy [on August 17] I felt some discomfort, I didn’t feel comfortable, but I wanted to play the game.<\/p>\n

“It was really important to be here because it’s a difficult opponent, they’d beaten us in the two games we played against them this year. In the first half I was playing with a bit of fear, but after that I felt a bit [more] free.”<\/p>\n

Orlando had beaten Miami 4-1 when the teams last met on Aug. 11<\/a>, with Messi absent.<\/p>\n

– Messi tracker: Goals, assists, key moments for Inter Miami<\/a>
– Lionel Messi’s late heroics lead Inter Miami to Leagues Cup final<\/a>
– How to predict when aging Europe-to-MLS moves will succeed<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Argentina star has been struggling with a muscular injury in his right leg this month, and made a brief return against the Galaxy, before coming back into the team on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Miami will now play Seattle Sounders<\/a> in the Leagues Cup final on Sunday, after they defeated LA Galaxy<\/a> 2-0 in the other semifinal.<\/p>\n

It will be Miami’s second appearance in the final in two years, after they won the tournament in 2023, while in 2024 they were eliminated in the round of 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi admitted to “playing with fear” as he returned from injury to score twice in Inter Miami’s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":182261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-182260","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115106088679464434","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}