Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Carranza likely to start
Argentine forward ready to play after ankle injury in Jan.
For Julian Carranza, Inter Miami CF’s Saturday home opener against Orlando City SC is about opportunity.
He already had the chance to make his Major League Soccer debut during the MLS is Back tournament, playing in all three of Inter Miami’s matches and starting in their second game of the tournament against the Philadelphia Union.
Now, Carranza has the opportunity to show what he’s learned during his brief time with Inter Miami and why the club reportedly agreed to a $6M transfer deal with Argentine soccer club Banfield for the forward.
“The objectives for myself are the same ones I had before the injury,” Carranza told the Sun Sentinel, “registering a lot of minutes, score goals and contribute. The focus for the team is on getting the wins we’re aiming for.”
Carranza, along with midfielder Matias Pellegrini,
was one of Inter Miami’s first signings in July 2019. He scored 13 goals across 40 appearances for Banfield and three goals in four appearances for Argentina’s national under-17 men’s soccer team.
The Argentine forward was expected to be a key player for Inter Miami coming into the season, impressing during preseason practices, but he had nearly four months of practice time taken away from him due to an ankle injury he sustained in late January.
Carranza missed Inter Miami’s first two regularseason games and his rehab stretched into the postponement of the Major League Soccer season in mid-March.
“The rehab process was slow because of the pandemic,” he said. “That made it a little bit slower but because the medical team decided to make sure I could recover slowly, it turned out to be a very good recovery process.
“I had a lot of support from the team and my teammates who were always reaching out and paying attention to my recovery.”
Carranza will likely be the starting forward in Saturday’s match and should receive plenty of playing time to further showcase his abilities, with two of Inter Miami’s other forward options not eligible to play.
Juan Agudelo will miss the game against Orlando City due to receiving a red card in Inter Miami’s last game of the tournament against New York City FC.
Although Robbie Robinson returned to South Florida earlier in the week after leaving the team for personal reasons before the tournament started, he won’t be available for Saturday’s game as he’s currently in a quarantine phase and isolated from the rest of the team due to MLS protocol.
All three of Agudelo, Carranza and Robinson have started this season. With Inter Miami still in search of a striker to fill their final designated player slot, Carranza called the competition for the starting forward position “healthy” but “never in a negative way.”
“We try to help each other improve and that forces us to do our best,” Carranza said. “The one that performs the best is the one who’s going to play.”