Never let it be said that Lionel Messi does not have a flair for the dramatic.
Down by two goals and an away goal in the second leg of Inter Miami's Concacaf Champions Cup quarterfinal against LAFC on Wednesday night, Messi scored two goals and helped set up a third to lift the Herons to a 3-1 win in the second leg and a 3-2 victory on aggregate.
Messi and Luis Suarez also saw apparent goals disallowed by the referee, the former for a free kick taken apparently before the referee's whistle, and the latter for a very fractional offside decision.
But Miami benefitted from the match's most pivotal decision when a video review resulted in the referee judging that Eddie Segura had committed a handball offense inside the area. Messi stepped up and converted the ensuing spot kick to put his side in front for the first time in the entire two-match series.
Miami goalkeeper Oscar Ustari made three critically important saves down the stretch to keep the Herons in front on aggregate.
Miami will advance to face the Vancouver Whitecaps, who earned a dramatic 2-2 draw at Pumas UNAM in Leg 2 of their quarterfinal Wednesday. The Whitecaps advanced on away goals following a 3-3 aggregate draw.
Match rewind
Aaron Long opened the scoring in the 10th minute for LAFC, which had won the opening leg 1-0 at home on a lone goal through Nathan Ordaz.
After Messi saw his free-kick goal taken off the board about 20 minutes later, he scored a no-doubter from open play in the 34th minute after some exceptional interplay with Suarez at the top of the box.
Noah Allen made it 2-1 on the night and 2-2 on aggregate when he served what looked to be an intended cross toward Benjamin Cremaschi near the penalty spot.
Cremaschi missed making contact with his head, but goalkeeper Hugo Lloris had come off his line and was expecting a deflection. He couldn't react in time as the ball bounded over the line.
Even so, LAFC had the edge on away goals, meaning Miami had to press forward. And after Messi and Suarez thought they'd connected for another tally, only to be told Suarez had been offside before sending his header past Lloris, the Herons finally got a bounce their way.