FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Lionel Messi put together a highlight reel and then some at Chase Stadium to deliver Inter Miami’s first victory in the MLS Cup final Saturday night, Dec. 6, 2025. The 38-year-old midfielder orchestrated all three Miami goals, making the latter minutes of the match nervy, tense, and a Messi MLS Cup showcase after Ali Ahmed had briefly pulled Vancouver level.
Miami opened the scoring after less than 10 minutes when Messi guided a superb pass behind the Whitecaps’ backline to release Tadeo Allende down the right flank, and his fierce cross struck Vancouver defender Edier Ocampo before spinning into his own net. Vancouver hit back after the break, Ahmed driving into the box and firing a low shot under goalkeeper Rocco Ríos Novo to level at 1-1 on the hour, but Messi then latched onto a loose touch from Andrés Cubas and rolled through for Rodrigo De Paul to slot home in the 71st minute before slipping Allende away again for a stoppage-time clincher. The answer was catalogued in a Reuters match report and The Guardian’s instant judgments: Miami withstood long spells of Whitecaps pressure but capitalised on critical moments.
Named the MLS Cup MVP, Messi called the trophy one of the team’s top targets after bowing out of last year’s playoffs in the opening round and praised a squad that “grew into it” during their league showcase match. On the field, co-owner David Beckham celebrated with his sons, and he said afterwards that Vancouver’s strong showing reinforced Miami’s multigenerational commitment to deploying Messi as their centrepiece in a slow-building roster.
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For Miami and its worldwide band of supporters, this Messi MLS Cup masterclass felt like the inevitable conclusion to a two-and-a-half-year remaking. Messi has scored 77 goals and provided 44 assists in 88 appearances since joining in 2023 – with both figures already eclipsed this season, not to mention topping the contributions charts across the entire 2025 playoffs, according to a talkSPORT analysis. It was also a bittersweet farewell game for longtime Barcelona teammates Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets, who ended their careers as MLS Cup winners with him. The Messi MLS Cup moment capped a story that began with his dramatic Inter Miami debut: an injury-time free-kick winner against Cruz Azul in July 2023 and a thrilling Leagues Cup win over Nashville a month later. From that opening night in Fort Lauderdale to winning the MLS Cup at the same ground, Messi has repeatedly turned Miami’s temporary home into a global soccer stage. Cover’s big year sets up a fresh rivalry.
If Inter Miami’s triumph felt preordained, the vanquished Whitecaps provided this Messi MLS Cup tale with a credible nemesis Vancouver arrived in South Florida as the Western Conference champion, on the heels of a fourth consecutive Canadian Championship crown and an earlier run to the 2025 final of the Concacaf Champions Cup, but will now also feature their first trip to MLS Cup.
Under the guidance of German legend Thomas Müller and Canadian midfield maestro Ali Ahmed, club history has been rewritten in Columbus over the last three years as the Whitecaps became one of MLS’s most consistent juggernauts despite Saturday’s disappointment.
What does this victory for Inter Miami mean for MLS?
The 2025 final also illustrated how far the league had grown around its multicontinental superstar. MLS Cup is now a one-off winner-take-all match at the higher seed, as prescribed in the league’s official Audi 2025 MLS Cup Playoffs format, and Miami’s crowded temporary stands once more looked more like an overrated European superclub stage than what we’ve come to expect for most teams around here. With the club about to move into Miami Freedom Park next season and defend a title to cap off an outlandish Supporters’ Shield, Leagues Cup and now MLS Cup haul since 2023, tonight’s Messi MLS Cup performance will be remembered as the night when the Herons truly made good on all that promise that was spoken of from the day he first pulled on their pink shirt.
For Vancouver, there would be only frustration that night, but for the swarming press and technical midfield — and their increasing collection of honours — that can’t be their final shot at winning a trophy, Messi and Miami finally did.
