World Cup winner Lionel Messi and his former Barcelona teammate Luiz Suarez were on target for Inter Miami as they cruised into the quarter-finals of the CONCACAF Champions Cup with a 3-1 (5-3 aggregate) win over Nashville on Wednesday.
Messi set up Suarez for the eighth-minute opener and then the Argentine found the target himself in the 23rd minute.
But the eight-times Ballon d’Or winner was substituted in the 50th minute before his replacement Robert Taylor made sure of the victory with a 63rd-minute header.
Inter Miami coach Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino said Messi’s withdrawal, when he did not appear to limp or be in discomfort, was due to a concern about his hamstring.
After going down 2-0 in Nashville 46 minutes into the 180 minutes, Miami scored five straight goals the first four by Messi and Suarez to win the total goals home and home comfortably. It appeared that Hany Mukhtar had pulled one back for the visitors late on before Surridge’s last-gasp strike, but Mukhtar’s effort was ruled offside following a VAR review.
The Herons return to league action when they travel to the nation’s capital to take on D.C. United on Saturday night. If he plays, it could be Messi’s last game with his club until March 30, as he’s expected to be selected for Argentina’s upcoming Copa America tuneups versus Honduras and Costa Rica later this month.
