Atlanta United saw to that with a massive upset, sending the game's most decorated player and biggest-spending team home earlier than anyone imagined.
Jamal Thiaré scored twice and Bartosz Slisz's header in the 76th minute provided the winner as Atlanta United stunned Inter Miami 3-2 in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday night to win their best-of-three first round MLS Cup playoff series in three games.
Two free kicks by Messi in the final minutes hit the wall of Atlanta defenders, and time eventually ran out.
Messi's header - yes, header -in the 65th minute tied the match at 2-2, but the hosts never reclaimed the lead and Brad Guzan stopped almost everything that came his way in the Atlanta net to seal the upset.
It was the fifth win-or-else victory for Atlanta United this season - starting with two must-win matches to keep hope alive at the end of the regular season against the New York Red Bulls and Orlando City, then a wild-card match at Montreal, Game 2 of this series at home and then Saturday's stunner.
Ninth-seeded Atlanta United will play No.4 Orlando City in the Eastern Conference semi-final, while sixth-seeded New York City FC will face the seventh-seeded New York Red Bulls in the other East semi-final.
No. 2 Columbus was already gone. No. 3 Cincinnati was ousted on Saturday. And then came the biggest surprise of all - No. 1 Inter Miami's season is over.
The team with the best record won the MLS Cup four times in the league's first seven seasons. In the 22 seasons since, the top overall seed has gone on to win the title only four more times.
And on paper, there may never have been a bigger upset than this one.
Messi's $US20,446,667 in total compensation from Inter Miami this season was about $US5 million more than the entire Atlanta payroll, and Inter Miami spent a record $US41.7 million on payroll this season.
It got Inter Miami the Supporters' Shield, the best regular-season record in MLS history and an invitation to next year's Club World Cup, which came as no surprise. But it didn't even get the club into Round 2 of the playoffs, which will be remembered as a massive flop.
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