Messi’s Inter Miami toppled by Atlanta United in seismic MLS Cup playoff upset | MLS

There will be no MLS Cup for Lionel Messi and Inter Miami this year. Atlanta United made sure of that with a massive upset, sending the game’s most decorated player and most expendable team home earlier than anyone imagined.

Jamal Thiaré scored twice, Bartosz Slisz’s 76th-minute header was the winner and Atlanta United stunned Inter Miami 3-2 on Saturday night to win their best-of-three first-round MLS Cup playoff series in three games.

Two free kicks from Messi in the final minutes hit the wall of Atlanta defenders and time eventually ran out. Messi’s header – yes, header – in the 65th minute leveled the game at 2-2, but the hosts never regained the lead and Brad Guzan stopped almost everything that came his way in the Atlanta net to close the gap.

It was the fifth win or second win for Atlanta United this season — starting with two must-win games to keep hopes alive at the end of the regular season against New York Red Bulls and Orlando City, then a wildcard- game in Montreal, Game 2 of this series at home and then Saturday’s stunner.

And the East is suddenly wide open.

9th-seeded Atlanta United will face no. 4 against Orlando City in the Eastern Conference semifinal, while 6th-seeded New York City FC will face the seventh-seeded New York Red Bulls in the other East semifinal.

No. 2 Columbus was already gone. No. 3 Cincinnati was kicked out Saturday. And then came the biggest surprise of all – No 1 Inter Miami’s season is over.

The team with the best record won the MLS Cup four times in the league’s first seven seasons. In the 22 seasons since, the top overall seed has gone on to win the title only four more times.

And on paper, there may never have been a bigger upset than this one – a no. 9 seeds or no. 1 seed, and not just that, a no. 1 seed with Messi in the lineup. Messi’s $20,446,667 in total compensation from Inter Miami this season was about $5m more than the entire Atlanta payroll, and Inter Miami spent a record $41.7m on payroll this season.

It gave Inter Miami the Supporters’ Shield, the best regular season record in MLS history and an invitation to next year’s Club World Cup, which came as no surprise. But that didn’t even get the club into round two of the playoffs, which will be remembered as a massive flop.

And Atlanta fully believed they would pull this off.

For some reason, Atlanta was a matchup nightmare for Inter Miami this season. It beat Inter Miami three times, all with Messi in the lineup; every other MLS team combined for three wins over Inter Miami.

A five-minute, three-goal barrage in the first half set the tone. Inter Miami opened the scoring and Atlanta United hit the right back – twice.

Thiaré was denied by the post 14 minutes into the game when his deflection of a flick into the box narrowly missed opening the scoring. And Inter Miami grabbed a 1-0 lead about two minutes later – Messi was stopped by a diving Guzan but Diego Gómez was there to lift the rebound into the net from a tight angle near the right post.

The lead did not last long. Thiaré saw to it.

He took a pass and was completely unmarked and fired into the top right corner to beat Inter Miami goalkeeper Drake Callender – who had no chance – to tie the game in the 19th minute. And not even two minutes later, Alexey Miranchuk tapped a pass to Thiaré, who went over Callender for a 2-1 Atlanta lead.

Just like that, the best team in MLS regular season history—and the best player in the history of the sport—was in big, big trouble. Inter Miami thought they had tied the game in the 25th minute, only for Gómez to be called offside. And the hosts argued wildly for a penalty later in the half, arguing there was a handball in the box (replays suggested they had a case), but they still went in at half-time 2-1 up.

Messi equalized it, a last hurray of the season. But it ended about half an hour later, leaving the Inter Miami team in stunned disbelief.