In front of 25,513 fans at TQL Stadium on Wednesday night, Inter Miami CF, fresh off their Inaugural Leagues Cup victory on Saturday night, overcame FC Cincinnati 5-4 on penalties following a thrilling 3-3 tie to advance to the 2023 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Final.
After an hour had passed, and Inter Miami was down 2-0, reigning World Cup champion Lionel Messi linked twice with Leonardo Campana to force overtime. The 2019 Open Cup winner Josef Martnez then gave the Herons a 3-2 lead in the 93rd minute, but FC Cincinnati’s Yuya Kubo tied the score in the 114th to force a penalty kick tiebreaker. Nick Hagglund, a Cincinnati native, missed his sixth effort in the shootout, but Benjamin Cremaschi scored to advance Inter Miami to their first U.S. Open Cup Final and second championship game of 2023.
Inter Miami will now compete in the Open Cup Final on September 27 against the winner of Wednesday’s second semifinal between Houston Dynamo and Real Salt Lake in an effort to capture its second trophy of the year.
Both teams battled heroically through the opening 15 minutes despite the heat index reading being over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, displaying strong periods of possession and goal-oriented build-up. With encouragement from the home crowd, FC Cincinnati scored the game’s opening goal in the 18th minute, due to a brilliant play by Lucho Acosta. The Argentine attacker was moving forward from the left flank when he sent a pass that deflected off Inter Miami’s Tomás Avilés and fell to teammate Aaron Boupendza. At the top of the box, the striker nodded the ball on to Acosta, who continued running before beating Miami goalie Drake Callender with a left-footed shot that went off the post and in for the game-winning goal.
Three minutes later, Inter Miami nearly equalized when Messi inserted Diego Gómez into the box, but FC Cincinnati goalkeeper Alec Kann made a spectacular reaction stop to prevent the Paraguayan striker from scoring.
In the last seconds of the first half, Inter Miami generated two more chances. In the first minute of injury time, Brazilian midfielder Jean Mota fired a 25-yard shot that curled left of Kann’s goal following a period of possession. Two minutes later, Argentine forward Gómez was spotted at the near post by USMNT fullback DeAndre Yedlin after cutting inside from the right, but his header sailed over Cincinnati’s net.
The host team overcame a threat at the end of the first half, and USMNT forward Brandon Vazquez gave them a 2-0 lead early in the second. Santiago Arias was located on the right after absorbing pressure from the opposition and receiving a line-breaking ball over the top of Miami’s defense. In the 53rd minute, Vazquez fired a powerful shot past Callender and inside the left post after Arias found him open just beyond the penalty area. The striker had caught the opposing defenses in transition.
Inter Miami came back after falling behind by two goals thanks to a Messi corner kick after Arias fouled Facundo Farias on the left. Leonardo Campana scored the 68th-minute goal to cut the host team’s lead in half after Messi lofted a picture-perfect free kick for him. Campana nodded the ball past Kann from six yards out.
In the 83rd minute, Messi passed to Campana from the left, almost giving Inter Miami the equalizer against the run of play. The attacker brought the ball down, took another touch, and then launched his eight-yard shot over the crossbar.
In the third minute of second-half stoppage time, Cincinnati almost put the game beyond Miami’s reach when replacement Sergio Santos snuck in on the left wing and center for Arias, whose right-footed attempt was turned out for a corner kick by Callender.
In the seventh minute of second-half stoppage time, Messi and Campana connected to give Inter Miami the equalizer. Working once more from the left side of midfield, Messi found space to provide another precise cross for Campana, and rose above everyone in the area to head home his second goal of the game and force extra time.
Inter Miami took the lead three minutes into extra time, riding the energy of the late equalizer. FC Cincinnati’s misplayed pass out of the back was intercepted by Jordi Alba, who swiftly transferred the ball centrally for replacement Benjamin Cremaschi in extra time. Josef Martnez, a Venezuelan striker, was swiftly introduced into the area by the 18-year-old Inter Miami Homegrown Player, who then sent a low blast past Kann to give Miami a 3-2 lead.
Just before the end of extra time, FC Cincinnati believed they had a solution when Arias rose at the six-yard box and headed the ball off the crossbar. When Nick Hagglund’s shot bounced off Jordi Alba’s hand a few seconds later, the team asked for a penalty, but the video assistant referee determined the Spanish defender’s arm was in a normal posture and no penalty was assessed.
In the 114th minute, FC Cincinnati persevered and scored the equalizing goal with the help of two replacements. David Ruiz of Inter Miami blocked Bret Hasley’s low cross after he had been sent down the left side of the field. Despite being cleared, the ball was passed directly to Yuya Kubo, who first-timed his opportunity past Callender to tie the game at 3-3 and compel the use of penalties.
Through the first four rounds of the shootout, all eight players had made their extra-point attempts, so Callender once more came through for Inter Miami. Callender dived low to his left to stop Hagglund’s penalty kick in the fifth round, just five days after saving two penalties to help the team defeat Nashville SC and win the Leagues Cup. Cremaschi stepped up and successfully converted his penalty attempt to advance Inter Miami to their first U.S. Open Cup Final and second championship game of 2023.