Miami, FL
Messi plays through a scare, Inter Miami rallies past Montreal 3-2 for fifth straight win
MONTREAL, QUE – Lionel Messi played the entire game despite a first-half injury scare, Benjamin Cremaschi broke a tie in the 59th minute and Inter Miami overcame an early two-goal deficit to beat Montreal 3-2 on Saturday night for its fifth consecutive Major League Soccer victory.
Luis Suarez got his 11th goal of the season for Inter Miami, and Matías Rojas scored off a free kick. Jules-Anthony Vilsaint and Bryce Duke scored for Montreal (3-5-3).
Inter Miami (8-2-3) extended its unbeaten streak to seven matches (5-0-2) despite Messi being held without a goal or an assist for the first time in his nine MLS appearances this season. Inter Miami is 7-0-2 in those nine games; one of its losses came against Montreal in March, a game where Messi didn’t play.
Playing in Canada for the first time, Messi briefly left late in the first half after some sort of issue with his left knee after being fouled by defender George Campbell. The eight-time Ballon d’Or winner as the world’s best player went down immediately, holding his knee and writhing in pain.
Inter Miami’s medical staff went onto the field to treat Messi, who got up after about two minutes and walked to the Miami sideline. He was not subbed out, which allowed him a chance to return moments later.
And for whatever reason, the match changed in that moment.
Inter Miami was down 2-0 when Messi got hurt; it was 2-1 when he returned and tied moments after he got back onto the field. Rojas scored off a free kick — one that Messi would have ordinarily taken — to get Inter Miami on the board, and Suarez tapped in a goal off a corner kick late in first-half stoppage time.
Suarez became the third player in MLS history to score 11 goals in his first 800 minutes of a season, joining Mamadou Diallo (11 in 2000) and Ola Kamara (11 in 2021).
The go-ahead goal came when Rojas sent a ball into open space and Cremaschi ran it down — then made a second effort to nudge the ball just clear of two defenders and into the net for a 3-2 lead. Messi had two chances in the final minutes to extend the lead, both narrowly missing.
Hundreds of fans greeted Inter Miami when the team arrived at its hotel Friday night and Montreal, in part because of Messi joining Major League Soccer last summer, sold out its 15,000 season tickets for the first time since the club joined MLS in 2012. Messi has scored in 31 countries.
An announced sellout crowd of 19,619 spectators — including one dressed in a Messi tracksuit and wearing a goat mask in a nod to Messi ass the Greatest of All Time — attended the match.
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The 3-1 Miami Heat have been absolutely rolling on the offensive end. They’re the tenth best offense in the NBA, which is pretty much as good as it’s going to get if your the Heat.
A big part of that success has been the speed of the team seeing a jump. A team that sat at 25th in pace and transition frequency just a year ago, now finds themself as the league’s fastest team through three games.
The other main reason for the scoring output has been their off-season shooter acquisition, Norman Powell. He’s been averaging 24 points a night on 48% shooting overall and 50% shooting from three.
Early Tuesday morning, Powell was added to the injury report due to groin soreness that would ultimately downgrade him to questionable for much of the day. After waiting to see how he felt after going through pregame warm-ups, the Heat downgraded him to out for tonight’s game against the Charlotte Hornets for precautionary reasons.
#CHAvsMIA INJURY UPDATE: Norman Powell (right groin soreness) has been ruled out of tonight’s game vs the Hornets.
— Miami HEAT (@MiamiHEAT) October 28, 2025
So now the Heat seemingly have to lean into the fastbreak stuff even more than usual. Powell has been a sticking point of generating the Heat decent looks out of thin air, simply through his elite shooting ability.
At least the Heat’s other off-season shooting acquisition saw a positive bump on the injury report, as Simone Fontecchio was upgraded to available.
Powell gets replaced in the starting lineup for a night by the Heat’s second round pick last year, Pelle Larsson. This is how the Heat usually operate when it comes to their rotations, since they like to keep the others in their usual spots.
The Heat are going to need their bench to bring that same offensive punch that they’ve been bringing, since making up for Tyler Herro and Powell’s scoring numbers is no small task.
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Antonio Gates allegedly hosted and played in a rigged Miami poker game, according to a new report.
Sports investigative journalist Pablo Torre reported on Sunday that the Hall of Fame tight end hosted and participated in an allegedly rigged game that was organized by Curtis Meeks, who was indicted by federal prosecutors as part of the massive gambling scandal that rocked the NBA.
Details were limited, but Torre’s report follows a report by The Post on Saturday, where one purported victim said that he and his friends had been scammed of nearly $1 million, with an ex-NFL player serving as the “face card” for a game in which Meeks was a main participant.
The federal indictment that was unsealed last week named more than 30 people and painted a picture of separate elaborate sports betting and rigged poker game schemes that involved Trail Blazers head coach Chauncy Billups, Heat guard Terry Rozier and former NBA player Damon Jones.
Federal prosecutors alleged that Billups had been involved as a “face card” for the rigged poker games, with mob-linked organizers using him to lure “fish” into the high-tech scheme.
Gates has not publicly commented on the report and it’s unclear if his alleged involvement is related to the rigged poker scheme that federal prosecutors had been probing.
Follow The Post’s latest on the gambling scandal rocking the NBA:
The source that spoke with The Post could not say if the game he played in was part of the same poker ring, but he said Meeks was participating in the game that they were playing in and noted that “we would never have been there if not for the professional athlete.”
The person did not name the athlete in The Post’s report.
The FBI has arrested 31 people involved in a rigged poker game ring backed by the New York City organized crime families.
- Ernest Aiello — reputed Bonanno mobster
- Nelson “Spanish G” Alvarez
- Louis “Lou Ap” Apicella
- Ammar “Flapper Poker” Awawdeh
- Saul Becher — professional poker player
- Chauncey Billups — Portland Trail Blazers coach, NBA Hall of Famer and 2004 NBA champion
- Matthew “The Wrestler” Daddino
- Eric “Spooky” Earnest
- Lee Fama — professional poker player
- John Gallo
- Marco Garzon
- Thomas “Tommy Juice” Gelardo — reputed Lucchese mobster charged in 2013 for beating porn star girlfriend
- Jamie Gilet
- Tony “Black Tony” Goodson
- Kenny Han
- Shane “Sugar” Henne
- Osman “Albanian Bruce” Hoti
- Horatio Hu
- Zhen “Scruli” Hu
- Damon “Dee Jones” Jones — NBA player from 1998 to 2009
- Joseph Lanni
- John “John South” Mazzola
- Curtis Meeks
- Nicholas Minucci
- Michael Renzulli
- Anthony Ruggiero Jr.
- Anthony “Doc” Shnayderman
- Robert “Black Rob” Stroud
- Seth Trustman
- Sophia “Pookie” Wei
- Julius Ziliani
The federal indictment sent shockwaves through the sports world and the idea that athletes from outside the NBA could be involved is sure to shake things up even more.
Gates was just inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in August after spending his entire career with the Chargers.
In 16 seasons in the NFL, Gates recorded 11,841 receiving yards and 116 receiving touchdowns.
He last played in 2018.
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