Pizarro, Figal, Shea to be available for playoff debut
Inter Miami CF is expected to have close to its full roster available for its first playoff game on Friday.
Coach Diego Alonso said Wednesday morning that Rodolfo Pizarro will be available for Inter Miami (7-13-3, 24 points) when it starts the playoffs with a play-in match against Nashville SC (8-78, 32 points) at 9 p.m. on Friday at Nissan Stadium (ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes).
“In terms of Rodolfo, we received the great news he’s going to be able to play and participate on Friday,” Alonso said. “He travels to Miami[ Wednesday] and[ Thursday ]. He should be ready to train with the team and be able to play.”
Pizarro was originally expected to miss Friday’s matchup because he was on international duty in Austria with Mexico’s national soccer team, but ESPN reported Tuesday afternoon that Major League Soccer will allow players to use charter flights for their return to the U.S.
That allows returning players who use the charter flights to avoid the nine- or 10-day quarantine period after international travel, per the league’s COVID-19 protocol, and be available in time for the MLS Cup playoffs — as long as they continue testing negative for COVID-19.
Inter Miami will travel to Nashville on Thursday after practice.
“Everyone’ s been adapt in gin every sector of the world throughout this entire year,” midfielder Wil Trapp said about the league altering its protocols. “To the league’s credit, I think they’ ve done a very good job whether it be the ML Sis BackOrlando to how they’ve handled these games throughout the regular season.
“Ultimately, in the biggest games you want all your players available. It makes a lot of sense that with protocols being in place and abided by that we can allow that to happen, in our sense, with Rodolfo.”
Alonso said defender Nico Figal and defender/ midfielder Brek Shea will also be available against Nashville SC.
The Argentine defender missed Inter Miami’s past two games of the regular season after sustaining a muscle injury in his left leg during the team’s match against FC Dallas on Oct. 28 that was expected to keep him out for a few weeks.
Shea, who scored four goals in 13 games for Inter Miami, missed the team’s past three matches of the regular season— two due to injury and the regularfinale against FC Cincinnati because he was “not medically cleared.”
Center back Andres Reyes is suspended for Friday’s game after being given two yellow cards and disqualified during Inter Miami’s final regularCincinnati onNov. 8.
“We’re happy to count on [Figal and Shea] and hoping nothing happens within the next couple days,” Alonso said.
Inter Miami and Nashville SC — the sixth and seventh expansion teams to qualify for the playoffs in league history — are both looking to accomplish an even more rare feat: becoming an expansion teamthatadvances in the playoffs.
The only expansion teamtoadvance out of the openingroundof theMLS Cup playoffs during its inaugural season was the 1998 Chicago Fire — who wontheMLSCupandU.S. Open Cup that year.
Inter Miami’s South Florida MLS club predecessor, the Miami Fusion (1998), the Seattle Sounders(2009), AtlantaUnited (2017) andLosAngelesFC (2018) all fell in the first round of their respective playofftournaments.
“Being an expansion teaminthe playoffs, we’re certainly excited to be here to start with,” Trapp said. “Itwas a goal of ours tomake it into theplayoffs becauseifyoudo, anything can happen. Ironically, it’s twoexpansionteamsplaying each other in the first game. For eitheroneof us, history will be made.
“It’s going to take a lot of effort, but as I’ve seen throughmy career inMLS playoffs games, anything can happen.”