Lionel Messi gets an assist, Inter Miami opens MLS season with 2-0 win over Real Salt Lake

FORTLAUDERDALE: Lionel Messi had two Real Salt Lake defenders on either side of him, two more a few yards in front of him. He quickly tapped the ball away from them all with his left foot, to a spot where only teammate Robert Taylor could reach.

Moments later, Inter Miami had the first goal of the Major League Soccer season.

Taylor's goal in the 39th minute set the tone, Diego Gómez added an insurance score in the 83rd minute and Inter Miami — to start Messi's first full season with the club — opened the 29th season of MLS with a 2-0 win over Real Salt Lake on Wednesday night.

Messi was in midseason form, darting through and around defenders, almost giving the sellout crowd what they wanted to see by nearly scoring on a free kick and then a corner kick midway through the first half.

"I think the eyes of the world are on Inter Miami, and I'm hoping that they're able to deliver on that and whatever expectations people have," said MLS Commissioner Don Garber, who was at Wednesday's match. "Mostly, I'd just like his experience to be good, the experience of the team to be successful, how they're positioned both here in the league but also around the world.

That's the story that I think is most important to us." Messi had 11 goals in 14 total matches with Inter Miami last season, leading the team to a Leagues Cup championship — its first-ever trophy — shortly after he stunned much of the soccer world by signing a 2 1/2-year contract worth around $150 million. He appeared in only six MLS matches in 2023, scoring once. Injuries slowed him late in the 2023 season and Inter Miami, which was way out of the postseason picture when Messi joined last summer, didn't make the MLS playoffs.

But the craze surrounding him is not fading. The lines for fans to buy his jersey, which was MLS' top-seller last year and has a new sponsor design this year, was out the door of the team store. He had the assist on the first goal and set up Luis Suarez — one of his former Barcelona teammates, like fellow Inter Miami stars Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba — with the pass that Suarez turned into the assist on Gómez's goal.

"I'm so happy," Suarez said.