The image of the night came in the first half. De Paul, wearing the captain’s armband in Messi’s absence, struck from long range and immediately pulled his shirt over his head to show a Miami kit with Messi’s name and No.10 on the back. He turned to the stand and pointed to the number. The referee booked him for removing the shirt; the rest of the celebration made the card look beside the point.
De Paul had lost his best friend’s father two days earlier. Jorge Messi died on Friday night at a medical clinic in Rosario, aged 68, after a long illness, the family confirmed. Lionel Messi flew back to Argentina to be with his mother Celia and siblings and was not at the stadium.
A minute’s silence and ‘Fuerza Leo’
Inter Miami held a minute’s silence before kick-off, with Jorge’s name on the stadium screens and both teams in black armbands. In the 10th minute, the home end unfurled a large banner reading “Fuerza Leo” (“Stay strong, Leo”) and started chants for the absent captain that carried through the half.
The club released a short line on the night.
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“Our hearts are with our captain, Leo, and the entire Messi family.”
Cuypers and Rossi turn the game
De Paul’s opener held into the second half. Hugo Cuypers leveled in the 47th minute for Monterrey, and Diego Rossi struck the winner in the 90th, sending Inter Miami to a 2-1 defeat that leaves their group stage hanging by a thread.
Miami had opened their Leagues Cup with a 4-2 win over Atlético San Luis. They now host Club León on 13 August in the final Phase One fixture, needing a result to keep their knockout hopes alive.
The father who took him to Barcelona
Jorge Messi’s place in Lionel’s career reached back to childhood. He was the one who took his son from Rosario to Barcelona in the early 2000s for the La Masia trial that changed everything, and he stayed at the center of his son’s business affairs for decades. Newell’s Old Boys, the club where a young Leo learned to play, called him the man who “underpinned with vision, rigor and affection the career of the best player of all time.”
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De Paul’s gesture carried a visual echo of one Messi himself once made. In 2020, days after Diego Maradona’s death, Messi lifted his Barcelona shirt to reveal a red-and-black Newell’s jersey with Maradona’s No.10. Six years on, in Miami, one of his closest friends did the same for him.
Read also: The father who moved a family for Lionel: Jorge Messi dies at 68
