{"id":31355,"date":"2025-06-19T23:26:28","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T23:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/lionel-messi-argentina-star-inspires-inter-miami-to-historic-victory\/"},"modified":"2025-06-19T23:26:28","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T23:26:28","slug":"lionel-messi-argentina-star-inspires-inter-miami-to-historic-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/lionel-messi-argentina-star-inspires-inter-miami-to-historic-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi: Argentina star inspires Inter Miami to historic victory"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

Few things are as inevitable as the ball hitting the back of the net when Lionel Messi sizes up the target before executing a free-kick from 20 yards.<\/b><\/p>\n

Messi reminded world football – if we even needed a reminder – that he is still capable of delivering special moments during Inter Miami’s 2-1 win over Porto<\/a> at the Fifa Club World Cup.<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old’s free-kick was vintage, trademark, and there was nothing goalkeeper Claudio Ramos could do to save it.<\/p>\n

This is, of course, a man who scored an eye-watering 73 goals in 60 appearances across all competitions during the 2011-12 season for Barcelona.<\/p>\n

Standing centrally and on the edge of the D, the goal was at Messi’s mercy, but he elected for the more difficult of the two options – going both over the wall and to the goalkeeper’s side.<\/p>\n

With that strike his 68th goal from direct free-kicks, Messi certainly has no shortage of experience and doesn’t lack in anything when it comes to confidence.<\/p>\n

Only Juninho Pernambucano (77), who spent most of his career with Lyon and Pele (70) have scored more direct free-kicks than Messi.<\/p>\n

“Touched by God, isn’t he? Incredible. What a player,” former Portugal defender Jose Fonte said on Dazn.<\/p>\n

“If you get a chance to go see this guy live – you go and see him. This is what he does,” ex-Newcastle goalkeeper Shay Given added on Dazn.<\/p>\n

“It’s nearly like a penalty for him – he is so precise. He is a genius.<\/p>\n

“You call him maestro, magician, the words run out.”<\/p>\n

Messi’s strike followed another stunning finish from team-mate Telasco Segovia and completed a comeback victory to put Inter Miami firmly in the running for a spot in the last 16 at the Club World Cup.<\/p>\n

It is the first time the MLS franchise have won a game at the competition and means a draw in their final Group A game against Brazilian outfit Palmeiras, who sit top, would send both teams through.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Few things are as inevitable as the ball hitting the back of the net when Lionel Messi sizes up the target before executing a free-kick from 20 yards. Messi reminded world football – if we even needed a reminder – that he is still capable of delivering special moments during Inter Miami’s 2-1 win over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[634,1107,2068,9805,10598,10599,433,1828,5152],"class_list":["post-31355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news","tag-argentina","tag-historic","tag-inspires","tag-inter","tag-lionel","tag-messi","tag-miami","tag-star","tag-victory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31357,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31355\/revisions\/31357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}