{"id":926067,"date":"2026-08-10T04:16:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T09:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/10\/de-paul-inter-miami-honor-messi-family-on-emotional-night-mlssoccer-com\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T04:16:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T09:16:24","slug":"de-paul-inter-miami-honor-messi-family-on-emotional-night-mlssoccer-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/10\/de-paul-inter-miami-honor-messi-family-on-emotional-night-mlssoccer-com\/","title":{"rendered":"De Paul & Inter Miami honor Messi family on emotional night | MLSSoccer.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

Soccer <\/p>\n

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Playing with a heavy heart for his Inter Miami CF<\/a> and Argentina teammate, Rodrigo De Paul<\/a> paid tribute to Lionel Messi<\/a>\u2019s late father on Saturday night.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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De Paul struck a beautiful long-range shot in the 32nd minute to give Miami the lead in their Leagues Cup<\/a> match against\u00a0LIGA MX powerhouse Monterrey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Upon scoring, the midfielder took off his jersey to reveal a Messi kit underneath his own before pointing at the No. 10 on his back.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Rodrigo De Paul strikes from distance for the opener and honors his friend Leo Messi and his family \u2764\ufe0f pic.twitter.com\/96GEG7XpMh<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Major League Soccer (@MLS) August 9, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n

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The touching gesture came hours after it was announced that Messi’s father, Jorge Messi, passed away on Saturday at age 68 in Rosario, Argentina.\u00a0<\/p>\n

De Paul, who won the 2022 FIFA World Cup<\/a> and reached the 2026 World Cup final this summer with Messi, is a long-time friend of the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner. Both players reunited at Inter Miami last July when the Herons acquired De Paul<\/a> from LaLiga side Atl\u00e9tico Madrid.\u00a0<\/p>\n

De Paul and the rest of the Miami squad wore black armbands in honor of Jorge Messi.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Leagues Cup outlook<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

Monterrey went on to rally for a\u00a02-1 win<\/a> on goals from two MLS alums: former Chicago Fire FC<\/a> striker Hugo Cuypers, and ex-LAFC<\/a> and Columbus Crew<\/a> standout Diego Rossi.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With the loss, Miami face an uphill climb to reach the knockout stage, despite a convincing 4-2 midweek win<\/a> over Atl\u00e9tico San Luis in their tournament opener. Only the top four teams per league table advance to the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n

The Herons will host Club Le\u00f3n on Wednesday in their Phase One finale (7:30 pm ET | Apple TV<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Messi’s status for the match is unknown. He is reportedly home<\/a> in Argentina with his family.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>Qiana Redner<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Soccer Playing with a heavy heart for his Inter Miami CF and Argentina teammate, Rodrigo De Paul paid tribute to Lionel Messi\u2019s late father on Saturday night. De Paul struck a beautiful long-range shot in the 32nd minute to give Miami the lead in their Leagues Cup match against\u00a0LIGA MX powerhouse Monterrey.\u00a0 Upon scoring, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":926068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28002,3639,2005],"tags":[44211,6725],"class_list":["post-926067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-inter","category-miami","category-soccer","tag-inter","tag-miami"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/926068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}