The rain started falling during the second half of NYCFC’s loss to Inter Miami when it was only 1-0 down, and the weather foreshadowed a worse fate for the Boys in Blue.
All it took was 12 minutes: a Luis Suárez penalty in the 83rd minute secured the three points and a play-off spot, but it was nestled between a Lionel Messi brace, where the Argentine showed his usual brilliance under Citi Field’s bright lights.
“To be honest, I’ve got to go watch it back,” Tayvon Gray said after the match. “It’s all in shambles right now, but I thought we had them at the beginning of the game.”
Nicolás Fernández Mercau started upfront instead of Alonso Martínez, who was left out of the starting XI due to a quad injury, NYCFC head coach Pascal Jansen revealed after the match.
NYCFC’s first summer signing had the best chance of the night to put the Boys in Blue in front within 30 minutes. The Argentinian playmaker was one-on-one with Oscar Ustari, but his left-footed shot just skimmed off the right post.
Baltasar Rodriguez put the Herons in front in the 43rd minute after both teams looked evenly matched to that point.
Messi capitalized on New York captain Thiago Martins stepping up from his backline to play in Rodriguez for the first, after the defender had given the ball away.
“The first 45 minutes, we played pretty decent,” Jansen said. “We had two, three good moments in the game to get ourselves on the scoreboard, but it was determined by one error, and we went 1-0 down at halftime.”
Needing a goal to equalize, Jansen sent on Alonso Martínez for Hannes Wolf just past the hour mark. NYCFC’s top scorer
Jansen then took off Martins and Agustin Ojeda, who had the tough job of marking Jordi Alba, for Jonathan Shore and Julian Fernández.
In an attack-minded move, the Dutchman moved Aidan O’Neill to center-back, a position he had played while Martins was out injured, recovering from a knee surgery.
Then Sergio Busquets played Lionel Messi through on goal a minute later for Inter Miami’s second of the night. It was a ball-over-the-top pass that the pair must have played a million times each between themselves.
The former Spanish World Cup winner took out five NYCFC defenders before the Argentine chipped Matthew Freese with his trademark finish.
Nine minutes later, with the rain pouring down at Citi Field, Justin Haak sliced down Rodrigo De Paul for a penalty in the 82nd minute. New York was trying to play the ball out from the back, but a careless pass allowed Miami to keep the pressure near the home team’s box.
Fans clambered down wet seats with phones in hand, expecting Messi to take it. But, it was Suárez, back from his three-match suspension for spitting on a Seattle Sounders staff member after a 3-0 loss, who duly slotted the penalty and sent penalty-specialist Freese the wrong way.
When City lost the ball again with a misplaced pass in the 85th minute, Messi floated into the space Justin Haak left from pushing up into midfield and was found by substitute Marcelo Weigandt.
Suárez made a darting run across the back-tracking Andres Perea and O’Neill, and it looked like he was going to be slipped in. But Messi took it upon himself to wrong-foot the Australian, getting the ball onto his weaker right foot and smashing it into the far corner.
“Those [first-half] errors were also part of the second and were punished severely,” Jansen said. “That’s the quality of Miami, because in the moments of transition, they’re so fast and they show good quality to punish us for those moments.”
