Leagues Cup Final Pregame Show: Nashville SC vs Inter Miami Live from The Tank Brewery

Guys of Messi and Co, we are live here at Tank Brewer and I am here with Ashley and we are here for the League's Cup Final between Inter Miami and Nashville SC. An exciting game, we can't wait. This is weeks of culmination, Inter Miami just doing its best with Messi and Alba and Busquets and friends really just tearing up the competition now facing big time competition in Nashville who has also faced a very tough path to the final. So again we are here at Tank, we're here with Vice City with the supporters group, the biggest supporters group. I don't know if you guys can hear them now, the drums are beating, they're starting to sing. We've got Austin Robillard that's over at Nashville in the stadium so we'll be tuning into him shortly so that he can kind of talk to us about the lineups and talk to us about what's going on over there at the stadium. I'll turn it over to you Ashley, what are you feeling right now? What's the excitement, how is the feeling over here right now at Tank? It's definitely going to be an exciting night. Again, Vice City just started to sing right now, the drums are beating, we're really excited. It's an insane crowd, I mean the game doesn't start until nine. People started getting here two to three hours before the game even started and they're just having a blast. It's a party and again I just think it's going to be a really good match. I'm not sure if the lineups have come out yet, we got to check and see if the lineups have come out. I'm not sure, yeah I think they have. So again we'll be cutting to Austin shortly so he can talk about the lineups. Let's see if he's ready and I think Austin is ready. Austin, can you hear us? Hey, what's going on everybody? Yeah, I'm live here at Geordie Park. You can see behind me the lineups did come out. Some of the big questions that were asked on our preview show earlier this week were about Nashville's goalkeeping and their starting striker and actually questions have been answered. Sam Surridge is starting for the first time for Nashville, the TP they brought in this summer. He's scored three goals in three debuts. We have Jay behind me from the inside. We've got Elliot Petticoat as well is starting instead of Joe Willis. He's away from the team. We're unfortunate and we wish him all the best and that's great for Miami. We've got the same starting 11 that we've seen for the past couple of matches for the quarterfinal, the semifinal and now the final. It's been the same. We've not had a lot of finally finding a balance and a roster that he likes. and talking about how they can defend and help protect the back line. Miami are going to be on the ball a ton this match. That's exactly what Nashville is going to want to do. They're going to give up possession and try and break on the counter. So, hopefully, even more into Miami they can stay close and they don't get caught out of possession too much. I think that is going to be the key. Great to Miami tonight. A lot of eyes on the wingbacks as well. Yes, they want them to get forward, but at the same time, they can get caught out because Nashville have a very dangerous attack and a very dangerous attacking player. We'll be starting alongside Sam Surridge, as I mentioned. We're going to see what happens when we talk to Martino and what he does in terms of the man marking that Nashville will bring out. I think the outs will probably shadow either Busquets or Messi for a majority of this match. If they can get out on the front foot early, tactics will have to change for Gary Smith, but I think that this is going to be a more tightly contested game than Philadelphia in the atmosphere. It's absolutely amazing as well. So, you guys enjoy your live show. We're going to take a break and I'll see you guys post game. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Austin. We appreciate that. We appreciate you being there for us. The atmosphere looks incredible and same as over here. Austin was just saying how incredible the atmosphere is. Looks like Sam Surridge is going to be starting for Nashville. I think basically the same for HMIA. It's going to be a tough game. I'm trying to think like what is this game going to play out at? We know that HMIA is a team that likes to keep possessions of all. We know that Nashville is a team that likes to play very fast, very defensive and take advantages of those counter opportunities. Do you kind of feel the same? How do you think that game is going to play out? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we touched on this a little bit when we spoke with Ben Wright from MLS. And, you know, I think it is going to be sort of a stylistic battle that also is going to complement each other well, right? I think we have Miami, which right now has been attack-minded, has been very compact, great one-touch passing. And I think Nashville has a great defense and back line. And so it's going to be really interesting to see how it's going to play out and hopefully the Herons come out on top. Yeah, of course. So it's going to be, again, just what we had mentioned before, we think it's going to be a much more competitive game than what we saw against Philadelphia. You know, we talked about Philadelphia kind of not playing their game, really focusing so much on Messi, focusing so much on Busquets and kind of getting away from what they're, I guess, what made them successful and gotten them to the semifinals. And I think that Nashville has kind of learned from that. We heard Teo had spoken before and kind of, you know, he was interviewed yesterday and he had spoken to that and said, hey, we know that there are going to be times where Messi gets the ball and we're not going to be able to do anything. There are going to be times that Busquets gets the ball and he's going to put in an amazing pass and there's nothing that we can do about it. We're going to play a harder game and make sure that we focus on ourselves. So I think definitely this team is going to be a lot more prepared, than what Philadelphia was. So again, just an amazing atmosphere here. I think that we have a few fans that wanted to talk with us. I'm going to see if actually we can find them. Let's see. This is a crazy, hectic environment. Let me see if we can find one of them that was kind of looking to talk with us here. And while John's looking, I'll say that, you know, when it comes to a final, a cup final, some three players that you can normally rely on is Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba. And so, we're live everybody. So this is kind of fun. He's a shy guy. All right. He's a behind the scenes kind of guy. Vice City. Vice City represents it. Yes. He says he's shy, but he's here to support it. He's excited that so many of the other teams are here. But yeah, right now, I was looking at some of the social media posts earlier and it looks like Vice City, as well as other supporters groups, really have sent their delegation over to Nashville. I heard that Vice City had about a hundred or so, maybe a little more, but they're still packing the house here. It just shows how many of them there are right now. Yeah. The environment here is amazing. I mean, like we said, people have been, we got here over two hours ago and there have been, it's been almost full since then. The atmosphere is fantastic. Everyone's excited, you know, to be in a cup final so quickly, to see the success so quickly with this team led by Lionel Messi. It's been really spectacular. And you know, win or lose, I think so far we've seen that the experiment and the atmosphere, the excitement, the memories happening within this club just keep growing. Of course. Yeah. It's definitely a lot of memories. As you guys can see, we're going to take, we're taking a look around Tank Brewery here, just showing all the supporters, there are families, there's kids, there's again, the supporters groups, just people that just, you know, want to be part of what is the excitement of seeing. So I think that when you look at Inter-Miami and you see all that they've been through these last four years, what they've been through just this season, battling the injuries, battling, you know, the unknowns of a new coach and being able to find success in such a short period of time, it's just something incredible. And the city is just buzzing and the city wants to be a part of this and just what a great environment. You know, I think that a lot of people haven't didn't know about Inter-Miami and they see, or they hear that this team is last place in the league and they're like, and then they see the play and then our team last place in the league. I mean, there have been a lot of changes, right? Yeah. No, a lot of changes. I mean, like we said, it's only been a few weeks, but you know, we've seen a remarkable, a remarkable amount of, speaking of people who have been here since the beginning, we have Carlos with us. So thank you for joining us for a few minutes. I want to know how long have you been an Inter-Miami fan? Well, Inter-Miami fan, officially, I can say about four, four and a half years. What has your experience been like pre-Messi compared to now? Well, pre-Messi, I gotta be a little sincere. It wasn't too much fun. The first year has been difficult. It's going pains, especially with the former management that we have, but now that we have Tata here and now we have Messi, I can turn around a hundred percent. Awesome. And I would say, you know, we obviously have people from around the world watching to see Messi, to see people to get Alba, etc. What do you want them to know about Inter-Miami as a club, as a community, as a supporter? Well, what I can tell, I belong to Vice City 1896. We're one of the official supporters groups from Inter. The cooperation that Inter has done for us to help us grow. When I started in Vice City, there were about 25, 30 members. Now we are over 300 over. It has grown tremendously, especially since Messi came over. Yeah. My message to everybody is, especially in South Florida, is join the support team. Come, experience our culture, our color. You're going to see music. It's a melting pot. We got people from all over, all over, every single country. Members from South America, North America, Central America, Europe. I mean, you name it, we have it. And it's a beautiful thing. I've been a member now for over three years and it's been great. It's been great. It's something that I don't want to change for anything right now. Do you have any questions? Yeah, of course. So I guess I just want to know, how does it feel? Because you mentioned about how difficult it's been, right? As a fan. And I think that it just shows the loyalty to stick around through the tough moments. How does it feel being a fan? How does it feel being a supporters group and finally arriving to this moment in time? How's that feel? It feels great. And we, the hardcore of Bi-City, we're really hardcore guys. It's a whole bunch of guys that they're really dedicated to this. We sacrifice a lot of our time, our family, you name it, just to be here for preparations. I also belong to Bi-City operations. We went inside to prepare and go put all the flags and all the different things that we do to make the experience better for the average fan. So when the average fan comes, they're going to see a beautiful stadium full of flags, full of banners. You see the band. We all praise it. We all wow. And that's who we are. And that's what we want to bring to our new generation, to our kids, to our grandkids and my kids. The new generation is just going to feed into this. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you. I have one last question. Thank you for your time. What is your score prediction for tonight? Score prediction? Well, the last three predictions have been good. The score hasn't been good, but today we're winning two wins. Thank you so much, Carlos, for your time. Thank you, Carlos. I appreciate you. All right. Wow. That was awesome. I mean, you can see firsthand the passion, the excitement, the camaraderie of these members of the community. It's just, it's so exciting. I wish you could feel the energy through the camera. Yeah. Like I said, and we've mentioned before, it's just exhilarating. You've seen throughout the entire city, really. We've seen the murals in Wynwood. You know, we've seen, I mean, you know, we've got a ton of parties just going around from Fort Lauderdale to Southport, where we're at, or Miami, where we're at right now. And it's just fans getting together and partying and appreciating what we're seeing right now, our first final, the ability to win our first piece of real meaningful silverware. Yeah. And I think that it couldn't have come at a better time, again, just through the most difficult of moments. And I think that really, you know, we want to win, but even if we don't win, I think it's still something special, right? It's only the beginning. I know, it's hard to believe it's only been like six weeks, you know, only a few games with him. Yeah, it's only been six weeks since Messi's arrived. He's, I believe he's on pace to maybe become one of the leading scorers in inter-Miami history. He's on pace for like 900 goals for the season, maybe? Something like that? Yeah. So he's got nine goals through six games, I believe. So he's tied with Joseph, if I'm not mistaken. And he is, again, on pace to really start breaking records. And just the position that he's put in inter-Miami, I know what I'm going to say, but it's like dreamers. And that's what we are, really. We're dreamers. That's what the Moss brothers are. That's what Beckham is. They're dreamers. And that's why they brought this team together. That's why it made the financial sacrifice because they're dreamers. So I'm going to say something that sounds very much like a dreamer. We didn't have an opportunity to make the playoffs eight weeks ago. We got a chance to win, excuse me, I wished, a Champions League. A Leagues Cup championship. We got a chance still at a U.S. Open Cup. We have the opportunity, mathematically, to still make it to the playoffs. I mean, could you imagine a treble? I know. No, it's crazy to think about. But, you know, I think that this fan, this community deserves it because they, like we said, we've had to suffer. We've had to endure a lot of changes in lineups and personnel increase like that. It's all part of the game, right? And to see, you know, already what's happened in such a short amount of time and the fact that the world is watching, I think it reminds me it's already a winner and hopefully, hopefully we get that silverware and hopefully these fans behind us have even more to cheer about. Yeah, a hundred percent agree with you, Ashley. So we've talked about the atmosphere. We've talked about kind of the trajectory of this team moving forward. We briefly touched on the game, but I kind of want to, I'm trying to think again, how this plays. So we talked about the same. I'm just wondering, you know, playing more like a playmaker up, maybe sometimes like a 10, is he going to be playing a bit more forward or maybe you're going to see something like against Philadelphia where there was a more defined midfield where you had Busquets, you know, playing in the middle. You had, I believe it was that way on the left or the right plane on the left and we had Kuramowski playing like right mid more so. And that, I think that really cemented that midfield and closed down the passing lanes for Philadelphia. I wonder, I feel like, could that be the key possibly to maybe a transfer? What do you think that midfield's going to look like? Yeah, I mean, definitely something that we can say is from the last two inter-Miami games going into this one, the momentum of our midfield has been great. They've started to really gel together. I think Kuramowski has continued to earn his right to be in that starting 11. And what they say about finals and what kind of makes a beautiful final is that you don't know what's going to happen, you know, and that's kind of the exciting part. I think that inter-Miami are sticking with, you know, what's worked. I think Tata Martino has something planned and is ready to go. He's ready to deal with this, you know, stout back line of Nashville, and hopefully we're going to see how the rest of the team sort of steps up in these moments. I mean, there aren't three better players to have in your final, I would say, than Messi, Puskacic, you know. They've been in quite a few finals, and they're ready. Hey, this is live, baby. Yeah, we got a lot of excited fans here, my city fans. But just going back to, yeah, so exactly, we've got very, very excited fans here. My city fans, you know, a lot of... So shy. Yeah, that was the guy that said he was shy. Apparently, he's not shy anymore. But so one of the things I think I also wanted to talk about is, you know, last game, inter-Miami 2-3, going into the second half, they were up three meters. And one of the changes that we saw for inter-Miami was that they basically, almost entirely in the second half, gave up ball possession, gave that to Philadelphia. They're very defensive. And we have, I mean, there are a lot of goalscoring opportunities for Philadelphia, some of which they clearly missed and could have gone in, that could have gone ugly very soon. I mean, would you agree that, let's say, the game plays out sooner than that, maybe we don't, you know, maybe that's a tactical change that they thought or realized. Just keep playing like you've been playing. Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, compared to maybe Charlotte, Atlanta, things like that, when you're playing a really good team, even if they have off nights, off moments, you know, I think it's clear that Philadelphia, between their game plan and just, you know, how the cards fell to the table, they didn't have their best game. But with any good team, you know, this is a team that made it to the MLS final last year. They're going to find ways to come back into the game and they're going to get those opportunities. And I think what marks the sign of a great team that, you know, the heart of a champion is being able to deal with those moments and still keep your composure, keep your level. And so, you know, I think for this game, they're going to try and not fall into that trap again. But like I said, finals are finals, moments happen. Everyone, you know, wants to show up, game's turned and our game runs. And so while I think that if we may see similar ups and downs, I think that this team has fought through a lot of adversity and will be able to handle it. And we're getting close, we're getting close to kickoff. I know we're on the YouTube. If you guys have any questions or comments, things that we can go over at halftime, please let us know. And yeah, exciting. Yeah, it's definitely exciting. And I think that one thing that we have going for us in this finals is that, you know, you mentioned, I guess, like a team having poise and a team, I guess, being confident. And we've got the best that have been in big moments like this, have been in the limelight, have been in Champions League finals, have, you know, I mean, obviously more important. This is more difficult than the World Cup. So, you know, how important is that? Like we have, you know, Messi, Alba, these guys in a moment like this. I mean, it's vitally important. And I would also say, you know, Joseph Martinez won only a few years ago, you know, they won MLS with Atlanta and with Kaka. And so he also, especially on this stage with these players, he's been in those big moments, they've won finals. And so I would say it's everything. I mean, you have Messi and then you have a lot of young players who, this will be a big moment. It's a finding moment for them. And I think that, I think they're going to step up to the challenge because, you know, like what we heard in Messi's press conferences and his interviews over the last week, is that he's happy. He's calm. He's enjoying playing the game. He's helping his teammates around him. He's being a phenomenal leader. And when you put all those things together, it's normally a formula for success. It's definitely a formula for success. And I think that not only does that make it easier for Messi to play the game, but when he's in a good spot, again, he's enjoying his time here. He's enjoying his teammates. He's done a really good job of adapting to what Tata has asked of him, adapted to his teammates. His teammates have also adapted to him. And I think that just lends itself to a more fluid game. And they just know how to play well together. And he makes everybody else around him better. And he makes everybody else's job easier. We have mentioned this on the pod before, just that one example. You know, we see players on the offensive end making runs that they didn't used to make before Messi because they weren't confident that that ball would make it to them. Whether it was a through ball or a ball over the defense or making those runs. They're making passes that they never made. And they're just, they're playing with so much confidence right now. And I think that's just incredibly important right now. Right now, you guys probably can't tell. I keep wanting to look behind me because I'm smelling the smoke. Yeah. Okay. They have over there. I think they took out a player right now. It's getting louder, but I think that like my ears have drowned out at this point that I can't tell how much louder it's getting. But yeah, we're minutes away from kickoff. The environment is insane. And yeah, here, take a look. Let's see if you guys can see. We've got the support in my city over there. And the environment is just getting louder and louder. It's just an amazing feeling right now. We're just going to take a second. I just want you guys to hear this. We're in the Lionel Messi era of inter Miami. This is the freedom to dream. This is what we've been waiting for. And we're minutes away. So I think we'll go ahead and get ready to watch the game and we will be back at halftime, right? Yeah. We're going to see each other best and break down whatever we see. We're hoping, again, I don't know. I think it'll be a close game, but I've been wrong before. I mean, I keep, I keep predicting what's going to happen. And even I am a pessimist that we're in the first 10 minutes of my prediction out of the water. So we'll see what ends up happening. But yeah, we're going to do our best to continue to bring coverage. We'll try to do a halftime show. We'll see. We'll see if we can do that. Austin is still in Nashville. We're definitely going to have a post game show. You guys are tuning into those. We've gotten thousands of views on those and we appreciate when you guys join for those post games, you guys come in with the comments, with the questions, we do our best to answer them. And we just appreciate you guys joining us. So again, we're going to, I think the game is going to be starting shortly. So yeah, the game is starting shortly. So we are, I guess, I guess just check in before the game starts. And we talked about this in our pre-game that we gave yesterday, our preview rather. Let's talk about it really quick before we end. What are the predictions for those that didn't get to watch? Yeah, I'll stick with what I said with Ben, which is that Inter-Miami are going to win this game 3-1. They're going to continue with their offensive power. Lionel Messi, Busquets, and Alba are going to keep the energy and the composure with the team. And Inter-Miami is going to lift its first trophy tonight. You? I love that. I agree. We are lifting the cup tonight. I said it would be 4-2. I think that Inter has, again, doing me wrong on these close games. I'm going to try to be right for once. So I'm going 3-2. I think that Inter comes up with the early lead as they did in the last game. And again, a tight contested game, but ultimately it's going to be a 4-2. So with that guys, we're going to wrap up. We're going to get to the game and we'll catch you again. Make sure you... Yeah, and for everything Inter-Miami, for everything Messi, follow us on Twitter, on YouTube Live Region Sports. We'll be back live and vamos Inter-Miami!