Messi meets Mahomes, scores goal, but Taylor Swift is a no-show at Arrowhead Stadium

Reigning Super Bowl MVP and Sporting Kansas City part-owner Patrick Mahomes made the familiar trip to Arrowhead Stadium to watch his soccer team take on Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami on Saturday night, but rumors of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce joining him proved unfounded.

To accommodate Messimania coming to Kansas City, the match was moved from the club’s usual home of Children’s Mercy Park (capacity 18,467) to the Kansas City Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium (76,416), which will also host this summer’s Copa America group-stage match between the U.S. men’s national team and Uruguay on July 1. Sporting Kansas City played its home matches at Arrowhead from 1996-2008. The official attendance on Saturday night was 72,610, setting a new club record for Sporting KC and marking the highest ever attendance for a soccer match in Missouri.

Mahomes greeted Messi before the match, with Chiefs head coach Andy Reid looking on.

But Swift and Kelce weren’t present, as social media users’ attempts to predict what events they would attend suffered a second consecutive blow (on Friday night, many seemed to think Swift would make a special guest appearance during pal Lana Del Rey’s Coachella headlining set, but that didn’t happen, either). Hopes of the NFL’s power couple attending Saturday’s game were fueled when MLS Season Pass’ color commentator for the match, Taylor Twellman, indicated that he thought it would happen.

Sporting Kansas City jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead when Erik Thommy scored in just the sixth minute, but it didn’t take much longer for Messi to make his presence felt with a perfect pass to Diego Gomez for the equalizer.

After several near misses in the first half, Messi scored a tremendous goal from distance to put Miami ahead 2-1 in the 51st minute.

Thommy pulled Sporting KC back level at 2-2 with his second goal of the match, but Luis Suarez scored his sixth goal of the season in the 70th minute to put Miami up 3-2, which ended up being the final score. This result snapped Miami’s five-match winless streak across MLS and CONCACAF Champions Cup play.

(Top photo by Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)