Lionel Messi scored two and set up two more as Inter Miami thrashed Nashville SC 4-0 to reach the MLS Cup semi-finals for the first time.<\/b><\/p>\n
The Argentina forward, 38, scored twice in the first half to put Miami in control, before laying on two for Tadeo Allende after the break to seal a convincing win.<\/p>\n
It means Javier Mascherano’s side win the best-of-three series 2-1, after a 3-2 victory in the first game was followed by a 2-1 defeat in the second.<\/p>\n
Messi ended the series with five goals and three assists, meaning he was involved in all eight goals scored by Miami across the three matches.<\/p>\n
“I want to congratulate Leo for the game he played,” said Miami boss Mascherano. <\/p>\n
“He was the first one who guided us in high pressure. To see him press like that at 38 years old is crazy.<\/p>\n
“We all know about Leo with the ball, but what happened with Leo without the ball today was impressive.”<\/p>\n
Miami, who suffered first-round defeats in two of the past three seasons, will play FC Cincinnati in a one-off semi-final on the weekend of 22 and 23 November.<\/p>\n
In Saturday’s other game, Minnesota United beat Seattle Sounders 7-6 on penalties after a thrilling 3-3 draw.<\/p>\n
They will play the winner of Sunday’s game between Portland Timbers and San Diego FC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi scored two and set up two more as Inter Miami thrashed Nashville SC 4-0 to reach…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":370095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-370094","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\/115527627781304230","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370094","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=370094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}