The Houston Dynamo took full advantage of Lionel Messi’s inability to play by winning a title on his home ground.

Griffin Dorsey and Amine Bassi scored goals in the first half as Houston defeated Messi-less Inter Miami 2-1 on Wednesday night to win the U.S. Open Cup in front of NBA star James Harden, a member of the team’s ownership group.

Inter Miami’s Josef Martinez scored in the last seconds of the second half, but it wasn’t enough, and Messi could only watch from the team bench.

Due to a leg problem, Messi was not on Inter Miami’s active squad for the game, which marked his fourth absence in his last five games for club and nation combined. It’s also uncertain whether Messi will stay out when Inter Miami starts its attempt to qualify for Major League Soccer’s playoffs this weekend.The seven-time Ballon d’Or winner missed the team’s 1-1 tie at Orlando on Sunday due to a leg injury that forced him to leave a game against Toronto in the first half on September 20. That was the third game he completely missed in the last two weeks—two for the club, one for the country—and skipping a final on Wednesday highlights the issue. Jordi Alba, another of Inter Miami’s lauded midseason additions, is also out for Wednesday. Due to a leg injury, it is questionable if Alba will participate in the next matches.Messi, 36, was absent from Inter Miami’s 5-2 loss to Atlanta United on September 16 and Argentina’s 1-0 victory over Bolivia in a World Cup qualifying match on September 12. He made a comeback for the encounter on September 20 but didn’t even make it to halftime before sitting out on Sunday.Even though it started to rain in the Fort Lauderdale area late on Wednesday, thousands of supporters—many of whom were sporting Messi jerseys in either the blue and white of Argentina or the pink of Inter Miami—arrived well before the gates opened for the Cup final if only to see the team buses pull up.Maybe they had seen the buses. Because Messi wasn’t on the field, some supporters may have experienced costly disappointment. Prices for tickets on secondary markets ranged from $145 to nearly $4,000 an hour before the game, with links to sales pushed on the team’s social media accounts as recently as Tuesday.Even though it was slightly lower than on Tuesday, it was still obvious that people were willing to spend a lot of money in order to see Messi win another championship on his brand-new home ground. This summer, Inter Miami won the Leagues Cup, defeating Nashville on the road in the championship game.After also winning the U.S. Open Cup in 2018, Houston won it once more in 2019. Since 1913, domestic teams from various American leagues have competed in the competition, some of them are even semi-pro clubs. The field for this year has 99 teams.With three games coming up in the next few days, Inter Miami is still very much in the running to qualify for the MLS playoffs. The club hosts New York City FC on Saturday, travels to Chicago on October 4, and then faces Cincinnati at home on October 7. Despite having two games in hand and trailing NYCFC by five points for the final Eastern Conference playoff place going into Wednesday, the matchup on Saturday is still crucial for the standings.Gerardo “Tata” Martino, the coach of Inter Miami, stated earlier this week that there had been no decision taken on Messi’s availability for future MLS games and that all discussions on the subject will take place after Wednesday.Messi has played in 12 games for Miami, the most of them in Leagues Cup and U.S. Open Cup action, and will earn between $125 million and $150 million for Inter Miami over the course of his two and a half year contract. In four MLS games, he has one goal and two assists in addition to his 11 goals and eight assists.