Inter Miami looking to earn second victory
Inter Miami CF enter Wednesday’s game against Atlanta United FC coming off their first win in club history. But they know that is just a start.
Although they’re proud of their performance against Orlando City SC on Saturday and happy to get the first victory behind them, Inter Miami know their record (1-5-0) and where they sit in the standings (last) aren’t cause for contentment.
“One game isn’t good enough,” Inter Miami defender Ben Sweat said. “We’re still 1-5 at the end of the day.”
In the same breath, Sweat acknowledged the difficulties the almost six coronavirus-interrupted months have had on the team as its tried to build a rhythm for itself on the field.
“It’s been a weird year,” Sweat said. “To play two games, go on a three-and-a-half-month break, play three games and go on a four-week break. We definitely have a chance and opportunity to get in a rhythm of consistent games. To start it off in a good win versus Orlando, that’s what we needed and wanted. We were all anxious for that first win and now we’re taking it one game at a time.”
Standing in Inter Miami’s way of getting a second consecutive victory is an Atlanta United (3-3-0) team that’s coming off a bounce-back 2-0 win over Nashville SC. That came after a winless MLS is Back tournament led coach Frank de Boer’s departure and Stephen Glass becoming interim coach.
Although Josef Martinez — the 2018 MLS MVP who’s scored 82 goals in 93 MLS appearances — is out for the remainder of the season with a torn ACL, Inter Miami can’t take Atlanta United
As the NBA sought to resume the season, players had to weigh whether playing basketball aided or distracted from their calls for social justice reform.
Those discussions are starting again.
With the second round of the postseason set to begin Thursday when the Raptors play the Celtics, players from both teams say there have been discussions about whether they should boycott games following Sunday’s police shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin of Jacob Blake, a Black man.
Players and coaches around the league say they have been frustrated and are upset after seeing cellphone video that showed Blake being shot multiple times after they have spent a month and a half in the bubble calling for reform.
“But it’s not working, so obviously something has to be done and right now our focus really shouldn’t be on basketball,” Celtics guard Marcus Smart said. “I understand it’s the playoffs and everything like that but we still have a bigger issue, an underlying issue that’s going on and the things that we’ve tried haven’t been working.
“So we definitely need to take a different approach and we need to try new things out to try to get this thing working the way that we know it should and get our voices heard even more.”
They’ve certainly been trying. At Disney in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, players have walked onto a basketball court lined with the words Black Lives Matter, went to a knee for the playing of the national anthem, and afterward used interviews to call for justice for Breonna Taylor, a 26-yearold Black emergency medical technician who was shot eight times in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 13 by plainclothes officers serving a narcotics search warrant without knocking at her apartment. No drugs were found.
In the early weeks at Disney, players felt their message was getting out when anger over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police was still fresh. But lately, having moved into the playoffs, the conversations had shifted toward basketball.
Now with Blake’s shooting coming so soon after the start of the playoffs, Raptors guard Fred VanVleet said it was hard to get excited about the second-round matchup — if they decide to play it.
“Coming down here, making the choice to play was not supposed to be in vain but it’s starting to feel like everything we’re doing is just going through the motions and nothing’s really changing,” VanVleet said, “and here we are again with another unfortunate incident.”
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lightly. They’ll have their hands full with Atlanta’s other attacking players, such as 2018 South American Footballer of the Year Gonzalo “Pity” Martinez, who scored both goals in the win against Nashville over the weekend.
“They’re a similar team,” Sweat said. “They have very good attacking players [and] definitely have the individual talent to make a difference.”
Inter Miami may have two of their forwards who didn’t play versus Orlando City available against Atlanta United. Juan Agudelo is coming off his onegame, red-card suspension that he served last game.
Rookie forward Robbie Robinson returned to South Florida early last week after leaving the team for personal reasons in July, and could wrap up his league-mandated protocols in time to be available for Wednesday’s 8 p.m. start.
“Robbie has been following all the procedures,” Inter Miami coach Diego Alonso said. “We’re confident and hope that he can be available for the upcoming match.”