Substitute Fafa Picault scored his first goal for Inter Miami in the 89th minute, Lionel Messi also scored his first of the regular season and Inter Miami earned a dramatic 2-1 victory at Atlanta United on Sunday evening.
Miami (3-1-0, 10 points) triumphed despite six saves from Atlanta’s Brad Guzan, who played an integral role in Atlanta’s playoff upset of Messi’s squad in a best-of-three Round One series last fall.
Messi’s goal came in the 20th minute of just his second regular-season appearance for Miami, which has already played eight matches because of CONCACAF Champions Cup play. He had missed three games due to muscle fatigue before coming off the bench on Thursday night in a 2-0 win at Cavalier FC of Jamaica.
Emmanuel Latte Lath scored his third goal in the 11th minute to give Atlanta (1-1-2, 4 points) an early lead. But his teammates are still stuck on one goal combined as Atlanta’s winless run extended to three matches after defeating Montreal in their season opener.
Both teams had plentiful chances for a second-half winner from open play, but the diminutive Picault providing an unlikely header ultimately decided affairs.
Jordi Alba got the ball out wide from a late short corner kick and served an outswinging ball to the back post. Picault outmuscled Ajani Fortune and sent a header bouncing back across goal, somehow wrong-footing Guzan and nestling inside the far left post. It was Picault’s first goal for his sixth MLS club, having moved to Miami from Vancouver this offseason.
Atlanta’s Miguel Almiron started the attack, opening the scoring with an excellent ball over the top to play Brooks Lennon down the right. Lennon then served an excellent, early outswinging cross that Latte Lath met with a powerful back-post header past Rocco Rios Novo.
Latte Lath thought he has his second just after the quarter-hour mark, but it was ruled offside. Miami pulled level on its next foray forward.
Guzan sprawled off his line to disrupt an initial cross from the right. But Messi surprised Bartosz Slisz with some rare defensive pressure to dispossess the midfielder as Atlanta tried to play out. From there, he weaved his way past the sliding Derrick Williams, then deftly chipped the charging Guzan.
–Field Level Media
