Atlanta United 5-2 Inter Miami Live Postgame Show

Okay, we are live. We hope. We hope. Alive or live. It's two different things, but yeah, what a crazy game that we just went through. I think well, first let's start off with how are you, Ashley? How are you doing today? Tonight? Well, here's I'm good personally. You know, I'm okay. There's a lot to discuss. A lot of things to discuss. How are you doing? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I actually had a nice weekend. I thought today was going to be a dove, but I think I've mentally been preparing for this moment. I didn't know when it was going to come. I told you in Austin, y'all were way too confident on Friday. I was like I was confident. I was confident, but like I said, just been preparing mentally for this moment, knowing that it would come. I didn't think it was coming today, but here we are. Just an insane game. I guess let's maybe start off from the beginning and obviously the lineups were different than we thought they were going to be, right? Yeah, I mean, you know, we have, oh, by the way, I saw a comment in our last YouTube video that I say you know too much and you know what? They're, again, they're 100% right. I do, and so I'm going to work on it, but if I say it, then it is what it is. So, yeah, with the lineup, obviously as of yesterday, we learned that Messi was not going to play and that he was not going to travel and I think it's the right decision. I think it was the right decision. I, yeah, I agree with this comment. It's what I was going to say. I think that Inter Miami, and I saw a couple tweets about it, they didn't need, they felt that they didn't need to win this game or that they were not going to risk it all for this game because it's on turf, it's in a hostile environment, it's so close to being after the international break, and our first results were so strong, like, over the last few league games that, like we said, there is still a good part of this that it's in our destiny, right? I mean, we can't keep losing. We have to obviously continue to win, but on a game like this, you know, I'm glad Busquets was fine and didn't get hurt, but he was not running as hard as he normally could. A lot of the players weren't because they were scared of getting hurt. I mean, you know, I think it was partially fatigue, or it was a huge part of it was fatigue. But, yeah, I think that nobody played at 100%, minus maybe, like, Campana. I think Farias played stunning. Yeah, so with the lineup, we saw Noah Allen instead of Alba. I didn't necessarily think Alba wasn't going to play, but, you know, in this kind of situation, I guess I'm glad he did it. And then Messi for Robert Taylor. Yeah, from the get-go of the game, you know, that was this great goal by Campana, but then at the end, or not at the end, but then, you know, moving forward, and we're going to obviously talk a lot about this, things got out of hand really quick. Yeah, I agree. I think that that's probably why we were kind of, at least when we were first talking about lineups in the pregame that we did, we were thinking that Messi was going to be playing, and I think that that's kind of what made us more confident about... And Alba. And Alba, yeah. I mean, there were a lot of changes that we weren't expecting. We didn't expect Alba and Messi on top of that to be out, so we were very confident, and those are things that change by the minute. We've seen that those decisions sometimes don't get made until maybe a couple hours before the game, depending on how the players are feeling. So obviously, Messi didn't play, and Alba didn't play. That made a big difference for us. But I just think it was an overall bad game for the team. At the beginning, we had talked about the game kind of being an open game, you know, both sides, and that's kind of how it started, I think. It started off kind of an open-ended game. I think that at the beginning, Atlanta got a few more... I mean, not so dangerous, but they were kind of, I think, creating more opportunities than Inter, but still, it was a back-and-forth game. It was nothing too crazy. And then, we get that first goal by Campana, which was an incredible goal. Incredible goal. I mean, the rebound that that came off of, that shot by Arroyo, man, if that would have gone in... I think Arroyo deserved it. It was a great strike. Yeah, that was an insane strike. If that would have gone in, I would have ran across my entire house with no shirt on. That would have been insane. I was like, oh my goodness. And then, when Campana gets it, I mean, the finesse. The finesse to stop it with the chest and then flick it so elegantly over the defender and then just absolutely rip it. Man, that was such a beautiful goal. And when that happened, that's when I felt like, okay, we're good. We are fine. And then, after that, just a bunch of stuff happened. Our hell breaks loose. After that, a bunch of stuff happened. Within eight minutes, it was like the worst moment that we've had, I think, for Inter Miami since Messi arrived. At least those eight minutes were just terrible. And I think that those eight minutes all stem from one play, right? Yeah. So, in my opinion, I want to preface what I'm about to say with the fact that I think our team severely underperformed today. I think that maybe whether it was the fatigue, especially of our defenders, it was tired legs, the game plan, maybe tactically wasn't exactly what we needed to cook up, but we didn't deserve to win this game. However, with that being said, I think that those were two such terrible refereeing and VAR decisions, not because maybe they were wrong, but because... What is the point of VAR? The point of VAR, in my opinion, is to try and fix errors that are happening in real time because the game is very fast. You know, the ball can be a centimeter on the line or off the line. You can see a player being a centimeter offside or onside, etc. That's the point of VAR. It's to make sure that when the on-field referees call something that we have the opportunity to check it. The fact that there was no goal-line camera angle, where it was a direct perpendicular 90-degree or whatever 180-degree angle that it was looking for the line of the goal, which feels to me like a somewhat obvious thing to be tracking in soccer, was horrendous. That decision, Drake Callender did exactly what he was supposed to do. When the ball was on the line, he hits it out. The fact that it was not even checked on the monitor was a problem to me because those things shouldn't happen. Maybe the MLS doesn't have goal-line technology, but it does have cameras. Cameras should be set up for a way that you can see these issues and be able to come up with the best possible conclusion to fix human error. That's literally the point, fix human error. The second goal, which I know we're going to go through the game. Can I comment on what you just said about the first goal for Atalanta? They were so quick to call that a goal. Thinking, let's call it a goal and then let's just see if we can vindicate whether it was a right call or a wrong call. If you don't have that technology, you don't make that call. It was not clear and obvious. You don't call a goal and you see afterward. It's not a goal, rather, but you can't call it and then expect there to be technology that doesn't exist at that moment to vindicate your call. I think that that was very deflating for Inter-Miami and it just totally changed the flow of the game from then on. Because after that, I think that was at minute 30 something, let's see. It was at minute 36. Was it? Yeah, minute 36. It was the Miyombo header, right? Yeah. They're professionals and so mistakes happen and you sometimes don't get the benefit of the doubt and you're supposed to continue to play at a high level and move on and they didn't do that. However, that was one of two instances where why do we have VAR and why do we have video monitors and an on-field monitor for referees to check. I mean, I agree with this comment. Inter-Miami didn't deserve to win this game. However, the game, it's supposed to be played fairly and that's literally the point of VAR. I think sometimes it can get too close with VAR where they change things because they've looked at it for so long and that takes away kind of the beauty and the point of the game. But these were two instances where there are rules, and we're going to talk about the second one, but there are rules and there are reasons why, okay, in the split second, the referee decided to give it a goal. Is it clear and obvious that it was a goal? No, and there should have been an angle to show that. Maybe it was, right? Maybe it didn't go fully over the line, but we don't know. And we're not playing, you know, this isn't like CONCACAF qualifiers where we have infrastructure that can't handle it. This is a huge NFL billion-dollar stadium and MLS putting all of this money and Apple TV putting all of this money, whether it's for Messi or whether it's for all these things, to be able to, I don't know, see everything. So yeah, it really rubbed me the wrong way that it just wasn't a finite conclusion. And then the goal number four that obviously sort of finished off the game, which to me was a clear offsides penalty. Clear offsides. And so even if it wasn't clear or could be the quote-unquote camera angles, I think in those situations, especially if you don't have offside technology, the referee should go to the monitor and look for himself. That's the point of it. And the VIR did a five-second check and was like, no, no, he's onside. If there's even one camera angle that makes it somewhat questionable, that's when you're supposed to go and look. So yeah, those two goals, which completely changed the game in both aspects, I think was a really poor decision from VIR, both of them, because the on-field referees can only do so much. Both really poor decisions by VIR and poor planning by MLS or whatever the rules are that you don't have a goal-line camera. Yeah, I thought that was strange with all the camera angles that we've been able to... When we have home games, I feel like we see plenty of goals that are from that angle. Yeah, and we've had, especially with Apple TV now, countless different camera angles that we've never had before in this league and just to know that we didn't have that, that was tough to see that there was no way to again, validate or invalidate that goal. But after that goal, Miami just loses complete composure. They really crumble at that moment, and then I think five minutes later, minute 41, there's a Miller own goal, which we can talk about the defense and some of the individual guys in this game, but I would say that in this specific play, I wouldn't count this against Miller. I think it was more of bad luck for Miller. He was trying to get the ball out of it. That really goes actually down to Aviles, which Aviles put a terrible pass. He put a bad pass that ended up getting intercepted and put right behind them. I think it was for Silva that ended up taking it down the line. It ended up being Silva against Aviles, but Silva is much faster than Aviles. Aviles plays more of a center-back role, obviously, and then he just gets killed on that corner, and all night long, our center-backs were just playing terrible passes, really bad passing. Terrible passes, really slow. I think I would attribute a little of that to the overall game plan and tactics, because Yedlin has a lot of miles on him, and that's asking a lot of Noah Allen when you have two really strong wingers for Atlanta and a very fast-paced team that's going to score a goal. I agree that the turf played a role, and I think, like I said in the beginning, our team didn't play. No one except for maybe one or two played at 100% because they were worried about injuries. You can tell me whatever you want to tell me. That's my opinion. They didn't run as fast, because they had it in the back of their head, or whatever the case may be. They were playing really, really slow, and I think it's also being tired. That wasn't Kamau Miller's fault. There's a lot of other things in the game that I think weren't Miller's fault. That wasn't one of them. Maybe that's a good point, though, to transition to. Let's talk a little bit about the individual performances. We can start with Kamau Miller, and again, I want to say, he has been superb for us over the last, you know, really for most of the season, but especially since Messi came. He's been really spectacular. He was unbelievably exhausted and a step behind tonight. He was not mentally you know, he wasn't really all the way crisp and paying attention, and I could count you know, off the top of my head in the second half, how many passes he gave away, when it was just him by himself, when there was no players around him. No pressure at all. No pressure. No accuracy on those passes. But he passed it slow and into areas where Atlanta intercepted it, and you know, it could have been eight goals they scored, if you know, really came down to it, where they, him and Aviles gave the ball up, and with no pressure on them, just made really bad decisions, and you know, he was, they were both, they both played really poorly. They really did. I think what adds insult to injury is the fact that there was so much space between the back line and the midfield line for inter-Miami, and you had Atlanta pressuring that back line, or sometimes not even pressuring, just making the positioning themselves between both lines, and the fact that there was no room for error with those bad passes, because the moment that pass would get intercepted, it's just, you're already against, usually just the two centerbacks, because either Noah Allen and Yedlin were really high up, so it was just basically their forwards against their two centerbacks, or their wingers against their centerbacks, which we know their centerbacks were a lot slower than their wingers. They were getting killed every time on that counter. So you cannot be, not be, or you have to be very accurate with those passes, and that was just something I played just all night, all game, with Aviles and Miller. And, to what you were saying before, I don't know, it wasn't just one guy, there was just so many people that, or so many players that were off their game. I think, I think Kramoski had his worst game this season. From minute one, he didn't seem to be putting in effort to the degree that everyone else was. I mean, his first 10, I agree with this comment also, but for the first 10 to 15 minutes, I think I saw at least 10, no not 10, that's an exaggeration, at least 3 or 4 times where Kramoski had the ball and either immediately was overpowered, gave it away, or didn't chase it. And maybe that's partially because Gomez is hurt and he didn't feel for this particular game. And it's human, it's human to feel that you don't have as much of the pressure of fighting for that spot, for that individual game, you're just coming off the high of playing for the U.S. Men's Astral team, etc. But, for an 18-year-old, I saw really no effort and energy, and I was disappointed in his performance, I really was. He stepped it up a little bit as the game went on, but from minute one, there's such a small margin of error for this team going into the playoff push, and when you don't have some of your best players playing, everyone should have the mentality to give 100%. And while, like I said, I don't think everyone ran at 100% or things like that, which I can understand a little bit, he didn't put in the effort. Other players were putting in the effort, I did not see the effort out of him, and it was disappointing. I think some of the frustration was also showing, especially because of his age, because he's such a young player, and he's still learning very much. He's so talented, but there's just something that comes with repetition and with getting games under your belt. And after that goal... Right, he's only 18. And after that goal, that should have been disallowed, in my opinion, I think your opinion, and then we get scored on three times in eight minutes, I think that that's something that for an experienced player, might, even though I feel like the team didn't do it as a whole, but I felt like that kind of got to him as well. I don't think his game got any better. I didn't think he was able to settle down. And his playmaking just wasn't... They were used to him playing really great passes. The passes weren't necessarily there. To your point a moment ago, even the physicality, I don't think was there. He was getting overpowered by everybody. And for simple passes, when they were still in their own half of the field, where he really just needed to do a crisp one touch, and he wasn't doing it. He was letting the ball be taken from his feet. Yeah, but everybody was doing that as well. I mean, Arroyo was doing the same thing. Kamal was doing the same thing. There were players that were just holding onto the ball way too long and missing key passes. There's just... The ball was sticking too much. We're used to Inter-Miami having a really good build-up, touching nice one-two passes, and there just was not a lot of creativity. There was not a lot of verticality. It was all just from one side to the next, and there was nothing really coming out of it. It was just a weird night overall. But yeah, so I think that we go into the second half, we're down 3-1. I don't know what that tells the team there. I mean, other than settle down, get out of your heads because they were all in their heads. That was a... You could tell they were very frustrated. But then they come out. Gabana scores off of a penalty. I know that the penalty... There's... It was an iffy penalty. They're saying that the hand was maybe already going towards the body. It wasn't, but with all the bad calls against Inter-Miami... He made himself bigger, and he used two parts. I mean, yeah. But then he scored that goal, and then it seems like there's a chance. We're down 3-2. Why did their goal get a yellow card for holding the ball? Can you explain that to me? Because isn't that a rule? Well, he shouldn't be holding onto the ball that long. And on top of that, it wasn't just that one moment that he was holding onto the ball. After that, I guess he was trying to be... I guess, mess with or get in their heads, whatever. But he was taking so long to kick the ball. He was taking so long to adjust the ball. And usually you see yellow cards in those moments, whether it was with the... Like you said, whether it was him just holding onto the ball after the goal, which should have been a yellow, whether it was him just taking a million years to kick the ball, that should have been another yellow. I don't know. It's just really bad refereeing on... I was just about to bring that up. I think that the referee... I really agree with this point that we just saw the comment by Nitrak, and I'm about to talk about that. But the referee swallowed his whistle and his cards practically the whole entire game. I mean... And I think Atlanta could probably make the same cases for a few calls that they didn't get, but I'll tell you what. There were so many times that inter-Miami players were knocked down when they were moving forward and they weren't called. And a few of them were deserved. I mean, you obviously know people dive and things like that, but Farias, I counted, especially in the second half, three times when he was approaching the final third that I think he was clearly fouled, fell, and the referee did nothing. He swallowed his whistle. He, again, didn't use his monitor. He didn't make decisions for himself, it felt like. He wasn't making any decisions. I mean, sometimes we complain about referees over-refereeing. I don't know if you saw any of the Tottenham game this morning, but it was like 11 yellow cards for literally nothing over-refereeing. This was under-refereeing and to a point where you know, let the boys play, but there are rules, there are reasons, there are structures, things like that. And yeah, I think the referee really dropped the ball. He lost control of the game. He lost complete control, especially in the second half. After that whole, like you said, after him not showing that yellow and letting the players get into it, because that's something that the referee has to do. And he didn't blow the whistle for like three or four minutes when they were all fighting back and forth. If you want to give the goalie a second to, you know, you're saying, oh, they didn't give him a second to get the ball out of his own net, fine, quote-unquote, but after 10 seconds, he has to let go of the ball. And it's, you know, it's time to restart the game, that's the point. He let the fighting and the back and forth and the goalie walking all the way to the halfway line for over 90 seconds to two minutes, killing momentum and doing basically the opposite of what the point of the resume play is. So with that being said, I mean, you know, refereeing is a part of the game and those things happen. I think the VAR things were unexcusable that they weren't checked to the highest level. That's the point of VAR. However, they could have both gone against Miami and that could have just been how the cookie crumbles. Let's talk about not having Jordi Alba because we know the impact of not having Lionel Messi. We know what that is like, but we saw last week that the team prevailed, had a great game plan, great energy, and were able to get the three points at home. Why was today so drastically different? I want your opinion on it, but I think, you know, we definitely need to discuss the Alba a bit more. Yeah, so I think it was different because last game you didn't have Messi, but you had two vets in each one of your lines and then you had a really good forward, or at least the forwards did their job and your wings did their job with Farias and Campana, but your other two lines had vets that were able to, it's almost like having coaches within each line. Yeah. And being able to look at Jordi Alba, your defense, yeah, and he's going to tell you where to be, what to do, he's going to give you confidence just knowing that you have that veteran presence. Same thing in the midfield line, seeing Busquets, so when you don't have Messi, you've got those two guys. Here you had one less guy, you know, I think overall everybody had a bad game, but the defense, you could tell was lacking the leadership of Alba. They were out of place a lot of times. Noah Allen, I've talked very well about Noah Allen, I really like him a lot, but I felt like he was out of place a lot of times. He was totally outmatched, right? Yeah, and Alba obviously would have made a world of difference there. Miller and Aviles, other than being inaccurate, they just seemed lost at times. Sometimes they would try to be a part of the offense when that moment in time, they shouldn't because there was so much danger for a counterattack knowing that if you lose the ball in that moment, you know, there's nobody behind you, and you're going to get countered. Hard highest scoring team in the MLS, right? Exactly. So I think that those are things that Alba would have noticed, and Alba would have talked to them and said, guys, adjust the line, you're too high up, I need you to come back down, make sure you pay attention to this guy, to that guy, and that's the type of leadership that we were 100% missing in this game, and that we had last game, and that kind of compensated, as much as you can because you can't really 100% compensate for not having Messi, but that kind of helps, and you've got two of those guys this time we didn't, and it was obvious that Alba was very much missed in this game. Yeah, I wish that Jedlin and Kamal Miller, who are both seasoned veterans, took a little bit more of a leadership role and were a little bit more effort leading, even if they were both tired. I didn't hear them commanding the back line, I didn't hear the motivation or the excitement, I saw a lot of stopped running, and I expect a little bit more from that leadership group. But you know, one thing I do also want to talk about is Tata Martina, and his choice not only of the starting lineup, but his subs, when the subs were made, and overall the tactical decisions. This is really probably the first time since the Messi takeover that I was really unimpressed with a lot of Tata's decision making. I thought Joseph Martina should have gone in way earlier. For Campana? No, for Robert Taylor. I don't think it should have been Stefanelli, I think it should have been Joseph in the 70th minute. I think at halftime, Benjamin Kramowski should have been pulled, because that's a learning lesson that when you're 18 years old, and you don't put in effort, and you don't have a great starting half, you get substituted, and you don't get to play. I think it should have been Ruiz who got to substitute in at the 45 minute, maybe even 55 minute mark. I think Khrushchev should have come in for one of the centerbacks also in the 70th or 80th minute. You know, guys, you guys know how I feel about Robbie Robinson, honestly. I appreciate his effort and his ability to try and create. However, for this game, him and really Stefanelli, they didn't belong in the game. Those weren't the substitutions I think that needed to be made. I don't think Robert Taylor should have started, because he had to go to and from Finland and played a lot, and he's been tired. But I understand that he maybe was looked at as the best available for that position in terms of skills. The changes were not made fast enough. Once we got that goal to make it 3-2 in the 55th minute or something like that, from the 55th to 80th minute or 75th minute, for those 20 minutes, we made no changes, and we desperately needed to. We needed to make the changes. I understand you see we get the quick goal in the second half. Momentum is going. Then the momentum falls. Those are the times you have to make the changes. They didn't. I think the defense needed to be changed much earlier. Like I said, Kramaski, who I think is brilliant and has done such a good job. He's so young. He's done so well in everything he's done, really, for this team. You start a night where you don't have effort, and you're not playing your best ball, and you're not mentally 100% there, that's when you have a seasoned coach like Tata Martino say, we're going to take you off at halftime. These are the things to improve upon. We go back on the horse on Wednesday, in my opinion. Those are just a couple of instances where I felt that the changes were too little, too late, and it was honestly a disservice to Joseph Martinez, who I know we have all been critical of, but it was a disservice to him in this game that he didn't get to come in earlier to try and help when we had a chance to get back in the game and to tie things up. He deserved his chance to come back and get his moment, but 4-2 or 5-2 and then him coming in doesn't really do anything in the 83rd minute. Yeah, I agree with you that I think that that's something that will always be a discussion, especially in games like this, because I've had this discussion about the other teams that I follow with the substitutions coming in too late, and it's something we'll never understand with some coaches, but I agree with you that Joseph should have definitely come in earlier. I think that, you know, Taylor, it could have been, as you said, maybe the fact that he was tired, but he did look out of place on that right wing. I think the most success he's had is on the left wing, but again, sometimes you just play the best player in that position. And that's why that one didn't really bother me as much. Yeah, yeah, but Joseph definitely, it would have been nice because Campana and Joseph wouldn't have clashed, which would have been good because Campana would have still been able to be that threat in the box, and Campana and Joseph would have been a bit of a threat in the box, but it would have helped a lot in the playmaking that we were missing. And Atlanta would have been playing him more because they wouldn't have wanted him to score in Atlanta. You know, sometimes it's as simple as that. They wouldn't have wanted him to score. He knows the team very well. He deserved more than eight minutes to be able to try and break down the team and get his team an advantage. Yeah, I agree. I agree. He's got the skills to be able to, I think, open up that match a bit more, especially with his ability to open up spaces for others. Because he is going to have eyes on him. It's going to be an additional threat because I feel like the defense for Atlanta had it easy because, again, Taylor wasn't much of a threat. So once you put in Joseph in there, then you've got someone that has to have more of, I guess, the defense's attention from Atlanta. And that would have helped out for Marias. That would have helped Campana. But at the end of the day, I think it happened a little too late as you said. And then the defense definitely, definitely needed some sort of change. You and me were talking a bit before about, you know, Christoph going in for Miller. You were saying Miller was tired. And I thought it was, as far as just him being gassed, it made sense to put in Christoph for Miller. But I was just having an issue trying to figure out if there was a way for you to do that and maybe switch, I don't know, maybe put Aviles to play more on the right back or left back and putting Noah in the center or something just because of the fact that the center backs were getting killed, absolutely killed. And I was afraid that Christoph would get killed too. But luckily, that didn't really happen. And the goal, the last goal and the goal before were given away because the defenders made tired passes, which is why they had to be switched. One of them had to be switched. And so, yeah, it's a shame. But these things happen. Like I said in the beginning of the show, I think that this game, as of probably Tuesday or Wednesday, they were not planning on putting in Alba and Messi. And they were saying we may lose this game, but we're not risking injuring our team or putting things in dire straits. I wish they didn't play Busquets for that reason too because Busquets didn't really have a chance to stamp his feet onto this game, which he normally does in almost every game he plays because he was timid and I think like everyone else, he didn't want to get hurt. And so, but maybe let's talk a little bit though about some bright spots. And I have two. One is that Facundo Farias is a stunning player. He's a stunning player. He really is. And we should really enjoy him for the 12 months we have him because he's going straight to a top five league team next year. Pepe, thank you for those super chats. Thank you for those super chats. We have two from Pepe. We appreciate that. We've also got a super chat from George. He says, we want Messi. And believe me, we do too. Yeah, no, we do too. That is a bright spot. And then Campana is playing like a striker who has earned a starting spot who just got a contract extension. He's playing great football. He's going to continue to play it. I love what I'm seeing after him. He's playing with the utmost confidence. He's finishing when he gets the opportunity to and that's what you want to see. So those are two bright spots for me and hopefully we can continue to take advantage of those. Yeah, there were in that myths of just complete, I think, chaos for us and just a tough game. There were some bright spots. Campana definitely a bright spot. I think that he is the future for Inter Miami. Inter Miami obviously knows that since they extended his contract. I think it was through like 2027 or something like that. So he's definitely the striker of the future for Inter Miami and he just continues to score. That's two games in a row with two goals each. So that's really nice. We've got Farias. Great penalty too. Beautiful, beautiful. And then we've got Farias that as you said is just somebody that man, what a difference maker in the game. The speed that he has is unmatched. He plays with grit and he's smart. That's the crazy part. The attack is amazing. He's able to create plays for others as well. So he's a playmaker. I just think that, because you've alluded to this before, let's enjoy him while we have him. I'm sure he's going to be wanted by a lot of other teams pretty soon. But yeah, Farias was definitely a bright spot. Who else? I mean, anybody else? It was a shame because I think Noah Allen actually for the most part did pretty well defensively for one-on-ones and things like that. He made a lot of good stops. He was way too timid offensively which is a shame. But yeah, what other bright spots? I mean, it was a tough game. It really was. But I guess the bright spot is that no major injury happened, knock on wood, and what probably the what the team, what the coaches, even though they would never say it with the front office, they probably chalked this one up as a loss or as a, we're not risking at all for this game. And so in the overall scheme of things, a bright spot is that Farias and Campana got more minutes to continue to excel. And you know, hopefully we're going to have a fully fit squad for our match on Wednesday. Yeah, Pepe with the other Super Chats, he's got an opinion. Taylor's top. Yeah, he's got an opinion on Taylor. But yeah, I would say he didn't have the best game today. Yeah, but he's had great games for us ever since Messi arrived. He really stepped up his game as many other players have. So it's tough to I think point this loss on one person when you just had the entire team or the majority of the team underperform. But yeah, he didn't have the best game. What does it say? Do you think we might need? We don't have a Glenn, but maybe it's me, Gianna. What does it say? Do you think we might need to get Jorge instead of Jorge? They wanted to Americanize your name too. that fit better that have experience playing with Messi from Europe because I think there's a limit with Joseph and Campana. I think it would be hilarious if your name was Glenn. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I guess maybe we can both talk to this. I think that there's been talk of bringing forwards from Europe. Hazard has been a name that has been mentioned before. Suarez that's currently playing in Brazil has been a name that's mentioned before. I think that for Campana, I don't think Campana is going to be replaced as again mentioned, they just signed him to an extended contract. He's not going anywhere. Joseph, that's a different story because he is a forward that earns a lot of money. They've invested a lot into him. I think that he needs to basically show from now till when his contract is over, I think through the winter that he's worth I don't think they're going to spend that money, but that he's worth keeping around and then he'd have to restructure or figure something out with his salary with his contract. Messi attracts stars. I wouldn't be surprised if there's somebody else in the works for that forward position. I haven't seen any reporting of anybody specifically getting really close to it, but again, we've just heard some names, Suarez, Hazard and I think the nearest one is Griezmann. That would be amazing to have Griezmann here and he's made it known that he wants to play at some point in his career, whether it's more immediately or whether it's later in the future, but I don't know. What do you think? I agree that Campana is not going anywhere. He's not going to be replaced. I would be really surprised if Joseph Martinez is a part of Inter Miami for the next season. Again, it's not really as much that it's a huge knock on Joseph because it's really not. Especially in the beginning of the season, I think he scored goals when he needed to. Not all the time. He didn't play maybe to his full potential, but he's still coming back from a really bad ACL injury. They're not going to pay for him and he's going to get money somewhere else. Good for him. He should get money somewhere else. God bless you if you can get money somewhere else. If you want to get that money, you should. They're not going to pay for him and they shouldn't. They could, for his salary, get two complimentary players instead. I think with Farias and with Stefanelli and with Robert Taylor and with Messi and we'll see with Robbie Robinson, but those are I think enough attacking prowesses that if you can get Antoine Griezmann, if you can get Suarez, great. But if you can't, you don't need to spend a lot of money on someone who is going to underperform or who is really at the twilight of their career. I think those are two. Griezmann and Suarez are examples of players that, yes, they are still playing at a very high level even as they're getting older, especially Suarez. Suarez looks like the Energizer bunny until he's going to be 50 years old. I think that they're going to continue to invest in the younger players coming through. When you see Farias who, like we said, unless something crazy happens in 12 to 18 months is going to be playing for a top side in Europe, you're going to see other young, really talented attacking players wanting to come to Inter Miami to get that same trajectory. I don't see any huge, big players for a ton of money coming in unless it's any of those. What you mentioned earlier, I think we were trying to find bright spots, I think, within the game and although it was a loss, again, no injuries, but moving forward, I think that one of the reasons why Messi didn't play is obviously he came out of that game a few minutes early against Ecuador, something that doesn't typically happen. We were afraid that he was injured. It's been said that he was not injured. He's just fatigued. It is something that they're controlling. Then he traveled to Bolivia. He didn't play against Bolivia. I feel like they saw that and they're like, at least Inter Miami saw that and was like, you know what? We've got a ton of games coming up. We've got seven or eight games within the next 35 days. Let's take advantage and just prolong this one. This stint of rest for Messi and especially taking into consideration that it was a field that is artificial grass. I don't think it was specifically just because it's artificial grass, he's not playing. I think that was one of the factors that said he's dealing with fatigue and on top of that, it's a turf field. Let's prolong that rest because by the time he plays against Toronto, it's going to be almost two weeks since his last game. That's a great amount of rest for him. Taking that into consideration, I think they're planning on probably playing him the rest of the way out. They know that they're basically preparing him for the playoff push. Depending on where they are when they're away at Charlotte, I could see a situation where he doesn't play that game. It's depending on where we are because I think that they all don't think it's worth it for him to play. You definitely don't risk him. You take him to the point that you are already in the playoffs. For every other game, right. Unless there's an injury or something else and unsubstantiated circumstances, he's going to play every game and probably almost every minute of every game for the rest of the season, I think. We just witnessed the biggest break he probably wants to have or would normally have. I think they're really going to try and get that final win next Wednesday. I think that's a priority for the club. That's my thinking. It'll be okay. The first five MLS results that we needed, or four that we needed for this beginning of the push, we got four wins and one tie. Coming into this game, again, we don't have a lot of points to give up. We're in a very precarious situation in order to make the playoff push. However, if there was a game to risk it, it was this one. To risk not winning, I mean. It was this one. The ball, I think, is still a lot in our court, or on our pitch, however you want to say it, for the most part. Overall, the positive is that maybe even though I wasn't happy with the effort or the individual performances, this was a game where you had a lot of fatigue and probably a lot of players and coaches really not wanting to push the envelope. Yeah, I agree. All in all, it's a loss. There's still, I think, what is it, seven? Maybe seven games? I think eight. Maybe seven or eight, yeah. Seven or eight still in this playoff push. Right now, let's see how we ended the night. There's still only six points, right? Because New York and Red Bull's tied. Maybe we're seven now. Let's see. Right now, we have 28 still. Let's see. D.C. United has 34, but did they play yet? They're yet to play, I believe, right? No, no, they played. D.C. United still has 34 points. Then between us and D.C. United in the playoff push, we've got Chicago with 32 points. We've got Charlotte with 31. We still have to play Charlotte. New York City with 31. I believe we still have to play New York City. Then we've got the New York Red Bulls with 30. We're still in the playoff push. We're still very much alive. Six points. Yeah. If you're going to lose, right, if you're going to lose in this push, and if you're going to try and be maybe tactically smart about the next two months or month and a half of potential playing, and you lose, you don't get any big injury, you don't play your big money maker, your big money players, and you don't change your six points away from the push, like you don't fall farther behind, that's probably about as positive as a game plan and strategic result as they could want. If you're going to lose, you lose in this way, you don't fall further back in the table, you're still six points in the playoffs, you still have a game in hand, and you didn't injure your big three. Yeah, and just to keep everything into perspective, at some point, we had to lose a game, and we went 12 unbeaten, this is the first time we lose, and we lose without Messi. And Alba. And Alba, correct. And, oh wait, I think that keeping all of that into perspective, I would say, as a Messi fan, as an Inter-Miami fan, or a fan of the game, don't panic. Yeah, the season's not over tonight. Yeah, the season is not over, Moless pushed us very much alive, and that's what happens. We've seen some of the best teams in the world sometimes just not show up, and while it is difficult to watch, while it does feel like a letdown sometimes, that's just part of soccer, that's part of football, it just happens to the best of teams. So, hopefully they'll show up next game, next game, let's see, when's next game going to be? That will be Wednesday, when we're hosting Toronto FC, who are last in the division. Okay, yeah, so then Toronto. Must win, I'm declaring it. No, yeah, it's definitely a must win. Must win and can't lose, as they say on another sports channel. Yeah, you're playing the last team in the division, and at home, it doesn't get any more must win than that, especially in this playoff push that we're at. let's see, I mean, is there anything else that sticks out about this game? I think it was just, I guess maybe just to sum up, it was a tough game, a game where very imprecise game from our defense. Sloppy, tired, lack of effort. Slop, I mean, yeah, let's just write down all of the adjectives. Yeah, let me cook tonight, you know what I'm saying? And I feel like for the most part, I'm pretty not, I'm not objective, I'm subjective, I want to win for Miami to always win, but I try not to let the emotions or be too hard or too easy, because it's been such an amazing jump that this team has made, and everything that we've wanted to happen for the most part has. And so these slip-ups happen, and so, do I wish there was more effort? Yeah, but am I like you said a few minutes ago, am I happy that we, you know, all those other factors worked out in our favor tonight? You know, two teams in front of us drew, so they didn't change the pecking order in terms of our ability to get into the playoffs for those six games. No big injuries, you know, knock on wood, so that's good. And two of those goals, you know, could have been right, you know, could have been back and forth. I think we still, like I said, we still have lost, I think we were outplayed, but it wasn't like it was 8-0, and everyone played so bad, and we are this helpless team. There's a lot of outside factors that, you know, the team probably will feel a little bit hard done by, by some of it. And that's good, in my opinion, that, you know, keeps people motivated and pushes forward. So that's sort of my, you know, these last 48 minutes have actually kind of been therapy because I was so mad in the first five minutes, and now I'm kind of like, oh, we're still only six points behind. Yeah. No, I agree, like you leave, you leave watching that game like so heated and so emotional because you want to see your team win, and you see them, because I think that one thing is seeing your team lose, but with effort, right? And giving it their all, and you're like, dang, like, alright, you lost, it sucks, but at the same time I'm proud of my team. And then when we saw this, and it was just a complete opposite of, of I hate sometimes judging effort, but just, it just was so sloppy. Maybe also mental, mental effort. I feel like there was just fatigue, and again, like I said, Kamal Miller has been outstanding, a lot of players have been outstanding for us, but they had a lapse tonight, and it happens, but you gotta have a bird's eye view. We talk this out, we let our feelings out, and then we come back down, and we're like, again, sworn loss. First time we've lost since Messi got here. And it's alright, it's one game. We got more games left, and we're still close to the playoffs, so I think I feel better. Me too. I've said as much as I could possibly say, honestly. I feel better too. Yeah, treble is still on, by the way. So, that's, that is the good news, but yeah, I mean, I think we can probably wrap it up here. Gian, did you have any last thoughts before we... Not, I think that, again, this is a team that is new. It's a new team, so it's just something to remind ourselves. This is a team that's still experimenting, still trying to find its identity, that's got a bunch of new players. I think half of the team is different than it was when we started this IEM. Just because we've seen such quick success does not mean this is a fully gelled, built team that has come with a lot of time underneath their belt playing together, so it's just something to remind ourselves. This loss kind of brought us back down to earth and reminded us of that today, that this is very much... These are humans. They're not all superheroes because that's kind of what we've seen them throughout this 12-game stretch of not losing, so it was just a reminder that, again, this is still a learning process. This is still a gelling process, and I think that this is good that this happened right now. I was just going to say, better than having to nap in the first week of October when you're only three points out and you have a messy play in 90 minutes. You don't want that. I think that you don't want to see your first sense of adversity when you're in the middle of the playoffs, and that's when things are harder. Right now, you've gotten the adversity. You've had a terrible game. You're going to be able to sit back, watch film, figure out what you have to fix, and I think this just makes you better. What a good time to face adversity when you've still got the ability to fix it and make the playoffs. I guess I'll just end with that. I think it was a tough game, but it's something that we needed to happen, and now moving forward, we'll be a better team for it. I'm sure that when Messi comes back, he'll... I don't doubt that he'll watch. I feel like he'll probably watch the game, and he'll come back, and he'll talk with Dada, and he'll talk with the players, and they'll debrief, and they'll be much better for this. It's a learning experience. It's not how you fall, but how you get up, and I think that's what's going to come out of this. I think that's a perfect way to end it. Yep, yep. So with that, we'll go ahead and end tonight, guys. We just want to thank all of you for joining us. Thank you for letting me cook. Yeah, Ashley just let it all out, and we weren't sure how many of you there were going to be, because usually we come here with better news and with better results, but it was nice that you guys, you all on a night where maybe it wasn't the prettiest game, and it was a tough loss to take. You guys are still here with us and talking with us, so make sure you guys subscribe to 5 Reasons YouTube channel, so you can get all the alerts when our videos come out, when our lives come out. Remember, we do live pre-games. We do, not live pre-games, we do pre-games for you. We do live post-games. Sometimes we even do post-games with fans in the background. It's really fun, and then we've also got the podcast that comes out on a weekly basis. Sometimes multiple podcasts, English and Spanish, so make sure you guys go to Messy and Co. on our Twitter, and you can see all the links right there for our podcast. You can even just check it out directly on Apple or wherever you get your podcast from, whether it's Spotify, and just type in Messy and Co., and you'll see it right there. With that, thank you guys. We appreciate all of you, and we'll catch you all on the next one.