Loss ends shorthanded team’s run
In a debut season fraught with obstacles and disappointments, Inter Miami ran into a final unexpected challenge it could not overcome.
A rudderless Miami team lost its way and lost its MLS playoff opener on the road 3-0 to Nashville SC without three players who tested positive for COVID-19 at the most inopportune time.
Two of those players were starters — $7 million forward Gonzalo Higuain and standout defender Leandro Gonzalez Pirez. Higuain’s brother, Federico, a midfielder who comes off the bench, was also absent.
Miami looked uninspired and disjointed from the start, fell behind 2-0 by halftime, and was unable to recover. And so the season that began with high expectations ended with a poor performance when it mattered most, a 7-13-3 record and a lot of questions heading into the offseason.
“We feel hurt being eliminated and ashamed for our fans that we could not give them qualification to the next round because they have been so supportive during a very, very tough year,” said Inter Miami coach Diego Alonso.
Veteran defender A.J. De La Garza said he refused to make excuses for Friday’s loss or the season.
“We disappointed the fans,” De La Garza said. “This wasn’t good enough, from the first game to the last game. Hopefully the fans will stick with us and they’ll understand 2020 was not a normal year. We’ve got nobody to blame but ourselves. I think a lot of guys could say they didn’t live up to what they came here to do, unfortunately.
“We have to go into the offseason feeling like that and no matter who is here next year, I’m confident the people on this team and people running it are doing the right things. We have to keep our heads up and move forward.”
Asked why he thinks things did not turn out as planned, he said: “I wish I knew the answer to that. Obviously, we’re an expansion team, had guys coming in throughout the entire season. Makes it difficult to jell and bond, you throw in COVID..but Nashville is an expansion team and had to go through the same stuff, so we can’t use that as an excuse.
“When this is all said and done, you could write a book about all the things that have happened to this team, individually, collectively, on the field, off the field. It would be a long book. Unfortunately, it ends tonight.”
Nashville SC coach Gary Smith empathized with Inter Miami’s troubles, as his club dealt with a COVID-19 outbreak the first week of July, when nine players tested positive upon arrival at the MLS is Back Tournament in Orlando. The entire team was sent home from the event without playing any of its three scheduled games.
“This has been an incredibly tough year, and I have to tip my hat to Inter Miami, I know they had some problems in their camp this week and preparations could not have been easy,” said Smith. “They managed to make it very competitive with big faces missing; however, we’ve had problems ourselves but in the first 20 minutes we showed the passion and energy you need and got off to a great start.”
Smith had said before the match that the team that played with more spirit and urgency would win.
His players clearly heard his message.
Nashville, known for its stingy defense, played the aggressor early and took the lead in the 14th minute on a strike from distance by unmarked Costa Rican Randall Leal. They made it 2-0 nine minutes later when German midfielder Hany Mukhtar converted a penalty kick after officials made a questionable ruling that Miami goalkeeper John McCarthy fouled him in the box.
For the first 30 minutes, Miami, which typically prides itself on its possession style, had the ball only 28 percent of the time compared to 72 percent for Nashville. Alonso tinkered with his formation to make up for the absences of Higuain and Gonzalez Pirez, moving winger Lewis Morgan to the center and playing five defenders, but the players seemed uncomfortable in their new roles.
Midfielder Rodolfo Pizarro surely was exhausted, having traveled 5,000 miles on three charter flights to get to Nashville from Austria, where he played with the Mexican national team Tuesday night.
Nashville sealed the victory in the 57th minute with a goal by
MLS veteran Dax McCarty, who sprinted 60 yards with little pressure from Miami defenders. Even French World Cup winner Blaise Matuidi, who wore the captain’s armband and is known for his passion, stopped in his tracks as McCarty went past him.
“As a defender, it’s on us to close down shots. Being along that back line there wasn’t enough communication,” De La Garza said. “Nashville’s very good at playing kickball. They have centerbacks that play 60yard balls in the air and with our midfield pressing and Wil [Trapp] pressing and Blaise trying to press, it left a lot of gaps between the defenders and the midfield and that’s where you saw the two goals come from. We’ve got to do better.”
De La Garza also said Miami players are not communicating enough. “The language barriers have to be better. Too many guys don’t speak Spanish, too many guys don’t speak English and that leads to not communicating on the field.”
Asked how the absence of the Higuains and Gonzalez Pirez affected the team, Alonso said: “We knew the difficulties we would face missing those players, plus the suspension of [Andres] Reyes. We had two very tough weeks because it cost us training time, but we will not use that as an excuse.”
De La Garza agreed: “We just were not good enough for a lot of reasons. I put it on my shoulders and the other guys, we were not prepared well enough to win the game.”
De La Garza said the team struggled offensively and defensively much of the season.
“On the defensive side, we’re not good enough at pressing and stopping shots,” he said. “On the flip side, I looked up at the scoreboard one time and we had nine shots, they had three shots, they had three goals and we had zero. So, on both sides of the ball we have to be better.”
The game was played in front of 3,200 fans allowed at 67,000seat Nissan Stadium. A small but spirited cluster of 60 Miami fans were in attendance. It was also broadcast all over Latin America, Europe, China, Australia, Africa and Israel.
Twenty-one of Miami’s 23 matches in its inaugural season ended in either a tie or a one-goal margin. But Friday had a different storyline.
“We tried with the players we had to press high, but their early goal changed the tone of the game, and we suffered from that and after that it was difficult for us to get in the game for 30 minutes,” Alonso said. “It was a tough year, and a tough final game.”
In the other play-in game, the New England Revolution beat Montreal Impact 2-1 on a 95thminute goal by Argentine forward Gustavo Bou. The Revs will play Philadelphia on Tuesday in the first round of the playoffs.