Inter Miami 1-1 New York City FC Live Postgame Show

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I know it was a rough game to watch, I know it's been tough since Messi hasn't been available, but let's talk about this game. Ashley, go ahead and you started. Yeah, I mean that was uh, we really didn't deserve to win that game. So like, you know, the goal, you know, the soccer gods should probably have kept that goal out from Ruiz, but I don't know how he missed it from right there. But my thoughts, and we're gonna obviously go into more details about the game, the personnel, the tactics, the flow, all those things. But yeah, my initial thoughts was that it was a lackluster performance from Inter Miami. I thought the referee allowed zero flow in the game and just every time like an Inter Miami player came close to a New York City player, they jumped onto the ground writhing in pain and the ref blew his whistle every single time. He didn't. Yeah, so it, you know, it was a game of not so much who could play better, but who could just, I guess, milk the clock or possession or flow of the game best. I don't think New York was so much better than us, as opposed to that just we weren't putting out our best performance, especially in the final third. I thought Tata was slow to make changes. From like minute three, it was clear that Facundo Farias was not doing a good job at taking the corner kicks. Robert Taylor, in the last 10 minutes, put like five or six fantastic crosses in. We could have used that probably in the 60th minute. So yeah, there was just a lot of miscues. And I mean, this team is tired. There's tired legs. It was a tough performance. But yeah, in the end, 1-1 is probably what it ended up being. I agree with the comment I just saw that it was zero luck. I agree. Also, I think that especially in the first half of the season, we were so unlucky so many times. The ball did not go our way so many times. I would have liked for this one to go our way. You know, it seemed like it could go our way. But yeah, my overall thoughts is that I don't have any. It was bleh. Gian, what about you? I see Star Wars in the back. Yeah, no, you would think so. It seems like the force is messy. And Messi left and took the force with him. I'm in a different setup today. I have family over. My niece is in my office. I let her fall asleep in there, my little baby niece. So I'm in my wife's office. And as you can see, she's a Star Wars fan. That's pretty cool. Yeah, it was a really poor performance for Miami. Unfortunately, I thought, and they had given glimpses, I think, through some games that they could kind of handle themselves at times without Messi. I think that when we saw them against Orlando, that kind of gave me hopes that, you know, this team can get through these games without Messi or Alba. They tied that 1-1 over in Orlando. But unfortunately, I think I was wrong. They've had a really tough time without Messi on the field. They had a tough time against Atlanta, a tough time against Houston, a tough time in that Orlando game without being able to score other than that one goal. And then obviously today. And I don't know. I don't really know where they go from here because they've tried and they've tinkered with different lineups. They've tried different personnel tactics and they just seem to be missing something other than obviously Messi. They're missing a spark and tired. They're so tired. Yeah, that's what they look. They look defeated. They look like they don't have any spark. So that's kind of, I think, worrisome for me because I don't know where you go from here. You've still got four games left coming out of this one. Yeah, four games left coming out of out of tonight. Unfortunately, you lost something that was very valuable, which was the fact that you controlled your own destiny. If you were Miami, it doesn't matter what any other team did. As long as you won the last five, including tonight, you would have been able to to make the playoffs. And now you're dependent on Montreal losing at least one of the remaining four games. You're dependent on Chicago losing. You're dependent on D.C. losing. The only upside there, at least, is that we know that we've got a game against Chicago. I believe we also have one, I think, against D.C., if I'm not mistaken. But right now you're just dependent on other teams losing and you've got four games left that you are pretty much must wins. And one of those games happens to be against Cincinnati, one of the best teams in the league. So I think you put yourself in a really bad position position. Yeah, there are four games left. One is against Chicago Fire, like you said, the other one against Cincinnati and then two against Charlotte. OK, so two against. Yeah. So two against Charlotte. So again, two. And that's the crazy part is going into tonight and over the last couple of games, I was looking at this schedule. And to me, it was like I didn't I wasn't in any doubt that I was very confident that we the playoffs is I'm looking at who we're playing against. But now after tonight, I'm not so sure anymore, because in theory, New York City is a team that's only won one away game the entire season. And they come in here and they beat us with two goals. So if we can't beat New York City, not not sorry that I yeah, I got sorry. But I mean, if we can't beat them, which in theory we should have beat them, there was no reason for us not to without messy or not. They're not a good away team. So they got this amazing play or, you know, you know, it was an individual good, you know, shot. But it was not that they did such an amazing, you know, run of play to get into that position to score. They didn't do an amazing job, but I think that they didn't do an amazing job. I'll agree with you there, actually. But we played so bad, especially in the first in the first half. They could have easily scored three, four goals, like if it wasn't for what's his face that that I think that he was trying to miss more than actually score a number nine. But yeah, he meant how many chances did he have in front of the goal? And he just kicked him out. Like, that was crazy. We could have been down three zero or, you know, by halftime. So yeah, it's just unfortunate. Unfortunately, I don't really know if Miami can make the playoffs anymore, because I lost all confidence in them, unfortunately. All right. We're going to bring. We're going to bring Austin Robilar, who's at Ripon Stadium. Austin, I'm going to have you take over from here. But initially, give you your first thoughts about this one one tie. Well, my first thoughts went to the math. Alejandro, Gian, Ashley, I'm looking at the table and I'm just trying to figure out a way for them to be able to do this. So mathematically speaking, it's very much possible. With that said, it's going to be difficult and a lot of it relies on Montreal, but they they can still get it done. If Montreal win the rest of the games, there's no way. If Montreal win two out of their three games, Miami would have to win all four no matter what. If Montreal win one of their last three games or less than that, then the doors wide open in Miami could definitely sneak in with less than four games won. But in reality, it looks like Miami are at least going to have to win three games at the very least. But four is probably the number because Montreal could definitely win two of their last three. So mathematically speaking, for anybody wondering, playoffs are into Miami are still very, very much possible. Does that give you any hope, Gian? I don't know. It gives me hope. But I don't I don't agree with that. They're very much possible. I think the chance is drastically diminished with tonight's result. Yes. And you've got you don't only have to worry about Montreal. You have there's other teams that even if you win out, can score more points if they win out. No, not true. Well, if Chicago. OK, so Chicago has thirty seven thirty seven points. We have three Chicago. We play Chicago on Wednesday. So if we have to win out, we have to win those games, of course. But we play Chicago on Wednesday. So we control our own fate against Chicago because we play them. OK, what about what about D.C. United? Think about it. If they're one point behind Chicago in Miami, win all four. They control their own fate over D.C. losing the matches like Montreal would because we also have a game in hand and we have a game in hand, I believe. But it's still very much that we don't depend on ourselves, which is the worst part. So we're very dependent on other teams dropping games. And it's not just dropping games, but us winning out. Well, it's really only it's really only D.C. and Montreal. If D.C. lose tonight against Vancouver, they play at 1030. I think the game actually kicked off just a little bit. I think they're tired right now, actually. Yeah. So if D.C. end up losing that match, then it changes everything because Miami would be two games in hand and four points behind. Yeah. But would you agree? I don't think I think the the chances drop drastically. Well, I know in terms of I'm just talking in terms of mathematics, but now we can get into the game because it was awful. Yeah. From from up here. I mean, it was a terrible first half. So boring. I was yawning. It was. But also the ref didn't give any chance like the team played horrendously. But the ref did not give either team five seconds to have a flow of game. I was so he wouldn't he wouldn't stop blowing the whistle every time an Inter-Miami player was within five feet of a New York City player. They dropped to the ground, writhing in pain, even if they were barely touched. And then whistle, whistle, whistle, like you're not letting the players play. Drives me nuts when that happens. It is frustrating. But I do think that Miami were playing a very sloppy style and getting after those those the opposition players. And he had to step in at some points and make kind of harsh decisions with the yellow cards and things like that to disrupt their flow of play because it was just getting a little bit too reckless from Miami, I think. And that's why I don't think any of the yellow cards were undeserved from Miami. Yellow cards, no, but just fouls. Every every single thing was a foul. There was if you count how many fouls were called in this game, I bet you if you look it up right now, it's going to be a crazy number. It really is. Forget the yellow cards. Yellow cards were deserved. But the game just there was no flow allowed for either team. And that's the worst kind of football. Yeah, it was it was a rough watch all around. But I'll be complete. It was hard. It was hard. The first half Campana wasn't getting fed the ball. There was only a couple times where I saw like at the end of the first half where he actually got to use his hold up play. And that was like the only good thing that he was able to do. Farias kind of just running around with, you know, like a like a what do they call it? Yeah, that's that's what I saw from him tonight. Farias is a winger. That's why that is a play as this number 10 winger hybrid. All the plays have to go through him and it just wasn't working. I thought Sergio Busquets didn't really offer much in this game. Dixon Arroyo, again, you know, it's that kind of defensive midfielder that you need for stability, but he doesn't offer anything going forward. Kramersky for me again, I'm not seeing the development that I would have liked to see. He has not come into the player that I can trust going forward in terms of progressive play styles and passing. I thought really not terrible. And Santi Rodriguez was doing everything he possibly could for New York City to break through the back line. And he finally did and kind of like hope out for a little bit. But I think that overall, what Thomas Avila is missing, by the way, it's going to, you know, cause for a big decision for Tatsu Martino as to what to do with the back line. I think we still see a back three, but Noah Allen then slotting in as the left Robert Taylor on the wingback with the Edwin coming back on the right. So we'll probably see that in Chicago, but man, overall, it was just a lousy, lousy performance. That's the word I think I'm going to use. It's lousy. They held the ball so much. They were somehow prone to counter attacks, even though they weren't progressing the ball themselves. Like I don't understand what the idea was from minute one. And I think that New York City FC came more ready to play just like the Houston Dynamo did. And that's not something that should be happening in driving state. I think that I think that New York City did a really good job and especially in the first half to create opportunities from themselves off of the turnovers. And I think that they did a really good job of disrupting inter Miami in the midfield. Cause what I noticed is that they basically made it an effort to make sure that when inter Miami would get the ball deep on their side of the field, when they wanted to build out, they made it a thing to put bodies between their defensive line and Miami's midfield so that they couldn't easily get the ball into the midfield and then distribute the ball out. They took turns between number nine and number 11, shadowing Busquets to make sure that Busquets didn't get the ball. So what did that cause? I caused a lot of confusion in Miami's back line. So it was either bad passes, which were intercepted, then turned into counterattacks or Miami just was trying to bypass the midfield because he knew that they couldn't get to the midfield and we're throwing balls into trying to get balls a bit deeper that ended up that there was no accuracy on those balls and they ended up turning the ball over anyways. And I think that that's what happened in that first half. And then come second and a half, I think Busquets did a better job of freeing himself up. And I think that that's where we saw a difference in the second half that midfield did a much better job. Busquets did a much better job to make sure that he made himself available to get the ball and then distribute. So that's what for me was a tale of two halves. But I think kudos to New York City because they came with a really good strategy, a really good game plan to make sure that they shut down Miami. And they had, I think that they shut down the middle of the field and that hurt Miami so much because they didn't have much going on on the wings. You didn't have yet in this game. You didn't have Robert Taylor this game, at least until the second half. You didn't have the 80th minute. Yeah. You didn't have five years playing on the wing. You have ideas playing in the middle. So how do you counter a team that's shutting down the middle of the field? You use the wings. Miami couldn't use the wings. So Miami looked lost in that sense as well. I wish that Robert Taylor would have come in a lot sooner because we saw when Robert Taylor came in and made a big difference for Miami in those last few minutes where they almost came out with a win, like they almost came out with a win. So I think that there were a lot of things that really, that really put a hindrance to Miami being able to develop their game and to attack. And then I think you add that to just Miami. Miami just looks out of it, man. It's crazy. They just look out of it. I don't know if it's fatigue. I don't know if it's mental knowing that they're not, they don't, they can't count on messy. Maybe they don't, they don't even know how long. Maybe it's because I think maybe you can hold it down when you're like, Hey, you know, messy is not going to be available, but staying strong guys, you'll be back in two games. I think they have no idea if he's going to come back at all. And I think that that has all played, uh, taken a toll on this team because they look Yeah, I, um, I agree. I think similarly to Wednesday, what is disappointing us is that it just seems that the effort is really not there at the level that we're expecting at this point. And I understand that they're tired, but you know, like your professionals teams are tired. You have to step up. And also again, uh, this is also a bit on the coaching staff where it's, you know, if your players are so fatigued, you have five substitutions. Why are you waiting to make them? How many substitutions do we make today? Three, four, right? Why didn't we make five? If everyone's And why, if we were, we saw that Facundo Farias took six corners and none of them made it past the first man, why aren't we saying, okay, well, let's get someone in who can cross the ball, you know? And so there was a lot of things where I just didn't understand. I think a Royal needed to be taken out 10 minutes earlier. He was becoming a liability played. I think he did a good job in the first half became a liability. I don't know how the hell he didn't get a red card for that because that was a ridiculously bad challenge on his part. And so unnecessary and it's, it's, you know, tired legs making stupid decisions. Uh, the, and then it's having, you know, two of your three center backs on yellow cards in the 60th minute that that goal by, uh, by New York city was because both of those defenders didn't want to, um, go near the attacking player because they didn't want to get sent off for the game. And that's because the coach didn't take them out when they needed someone who could get, who could be more aggressive in the box and cover. And Drake, Drake also like looked asleep on that one. I mean, I guess he didn't expect the shot to be hit that hard, but he, he was not being as proactive as I like. So it's, it's a, one of those things where, you know, these players are being asked a lot and it's fair, you know, they're being asked a lot. They're extremely exhausted. They've been playing a lot more games than their competitors, right? Like against their, uh, their league play. But then you have a coach who's making millions of dollars who needs to then make these changes. You have five substitutions starting in the second half. You know, I, I wish Joseph was in earlier and I wish Robert Taylor was in earlier. And you don't, we don't say that about Joseph very often on this podcast. I wish he was in way earlier. You know, Kramowski is not handling the pressure. Well, honestly, like when, if we're going to just call a spade a spade compared to Ruiz and Noah Allen, who are the same age or, you know, maybe six months older, even obvious Kramowski is folding under pressure within minutes and he's losing control of himself in the game and you just, you can't have that. And so, yeah, there's a lot of things that are happening. And I, and I think the uncertainty with messy and the basically not telling us what's happening or even telling his teammates what's happening is really negative, negatively affecting everybody. A couple, a couple of things I want to address. I saw some arguments going on in the comments about if Chicago has turf or not, they Chicago doesn't have turf. So if anybody's thinking that because Chicago has turf, that would be the deciding factor of Messi's playing Chicago and soldier field is not a turf field by any means. It was switched a couple of years ago. So there's that Gian, I wanted to address a lot of what you said and, and how it kind of relates to a question I want to pose to both of you is that, you know, defensively, this team was pretty solid. They couldn't really work the ball through the midfield or through the wings in this one. You had to rely on Farias and Campana and Kramowski going forward. Drake only had to make two saves tonight, obviously could have made a third makes it one, one, but conceding one goal is not necessarily a terrible thing for a defense. Okay. It's one goal is not make or break branded. It came at a really weak point in the match in the 70 what seventh minute. So it looked really rough and it felt really rough, but in reality, Miami should have done better offensively. But this is my question, obviously messy aside, I don't want to talk about messy in this question. I want you to give it as if he's out for the rest of the year, Very simply speaking, Campana, Farias, Kramowski are not enough for this team to generate offense in the slightest bit. They have gone zero for zero in 90 minutes of play or 180 minutes of play going back to the Houston dynamo game. They have not scored a goal. Joseph has had to come on as a substitute and score a goal. Robert Taylor has had to come on as a substitute and whip off a corner for Tomas Havelis to score in the late, late on in this match. What in the world does Miami need to do and who needs to be inserted onto the pitch for this offense to actually do something without Lionel Messi? Because clearly over the last 180 minutes of football, it is determined and defined that Campana, Kramowski and Farias are not enough. The American Messi, Robbie Robinson. I'm just kidding. You can go first, John, if you want. I think it's a really tough question because in theory, what we have on the field now, I thought was going to work. So it's really tough because you don't have many options either. I mean, those are the guys. And Joseph is someone that I don't have a lot of confidence in as a starter. We see that sometimes bringing him in as a sub can maybe change the game or bring in fresh legs or for whatever reason. But as a starter, I don't think he's the answer. I think that so we tried this lineup once and I thought it was good because we knew that Gomez in the midfield kind of playing instead of or alongside Kramowski is not something that works because they both basically go up and the midfield on defense suffers. What if we go back to that one lineup where we had Gomez playing on the right as a wing that I think that was only tried once and I can't remember against who it was, but I remember speaking after and saying that that was something that looks good and that was something that worked. That would be a spark of offense because that's what this team needs is a spark of offense. So that might be something that we can try. But I think that for this to work, it has to be three up front because you need help on the wings. That's one thing I've noticed into Miami without Messi is not going to generate much through the middle that I think is for sure. That's not happening. If Messi's not there, nothing's going to happen in the middle. You need to open up the wings with no Alba, especially you suffer because Alba you need someone on the wing. You need some sort of an association on the wing like you had with like you used to have a when Messi used to be in Barcelona where he would have Danny Alves. It would be him and Danny Alves on the wing. Some of the things that we've seen work in the past are Robert Taylor as a winger on the left with Noah Allen. That's worked a lot. You need somebody for yelling to associate himself with on the right. That could be maybe Gomez. I think that's what has been a blueprint for success for Miami is having your right back or your, yeah, your right back or your right fullback work with a winger up top. And that's something I have not seen in the last few games because again, no Messi, no Alba. You need to figure out players to inject that are going to make that work. And what comes to mind to me is right off the bat, figure out a way to get on the wing, figure out a way to get Robert Taylor on the wing, figure out a way to get Gomez on the wing. I don't know who, where, what, but try to do that and try to have them work with yelling or Noah Allen. To me, that's what's going to generate offense. If Messi isn't on the field. Okay. And look, I'm actually going to prove your point here, Gian, New York Red Bulls earlier on this year, two nil, Messi came off the bench in that one. Um, but the starting lineup as they want to know was a on paper, a five, four, one, but you had the back five of obviously Geordie Alba. You had the three center backs and Noah Allen, Kamal Miller, and Thomas Aviles. And then Robbie Taylor as a quote unquote, right wing back. The four midfielders were funny. It's on the left. Diego Gomez on the right with Dixon Arroyo and David Ruiz holding the middle Kampana up top. What you can do is use Noah Allen as that third center back. Instead of Thomas Aviles, obviously you're going to have Sergei Kristof going forward. You can switch Robert Taylor over to the left wing backside, insert DeAndre Yedlin and keep it like that. That's literally a straight swap. Exactly what you just said. And they were successful in that match. And we were very comfortable with the way they played without Leonel Messi. But do you know why they were successful in that match? We really want to call a spade a spade because they knew Messi was coming in in the 60th minute. Not to be I'm not trying to be a negative Nancy and I'm really not. We're away from home. There was a lot of hype around the game. They knew they had Messi and Busquets coming in. You're seeing it's a huge drop off and confidence in an effort. Huge. I'm sorry. I don't care what people say. It's I'm seeing it every game. It's the Orlando game was on, I think, honestly, an anomaly compared to what we've seen in all the other games like that one where we're basing how we feel about this team based off of that game when we really should be basing it off of the game against Atlanta, Houston and and tonight. And I'm I'm really, you know, I'm like me, actually. You sound like I'm not a negative person. I'm not a negative person. And I'm not trying to be. But you're seeing a team playing like they just like they got their candy taken away from them. And it's and it's true. Like when you lose the world's greatest player of all time, yeah, it's going to definitely, you know, it's going to it's going to leave a mark. But you do have a lot of talented players who are available to play to answer your earlier question. I know. Oh, who I was going to say who commented that it was us who commented. Here's what I would answer your earlier question. I think you're going to John Mota start on Wednesday. I hope he's healthy because I think that he can be the one to whip back and forth. And I think it will be instead and it will be for Kramosky because Ruiz has done nothing to lose his place in the starting lineup. Kramosky has and Kramosky can come in as a sub and make a huge impact and bring that energy. But from he's just he's not quite there. And that's OK. He's 18 years old. He has you know, he's going to have a good off season to develop. He was obviously thrust. But, you know, a lot of players look good when they have Messi and Alba on the pitch and Busquets on the pitch with them. You look like a much better player. And that's not me saying because I don't think he is because I think he's an extremely talented young player. But again, Tata Martino is asking a lot out of players who you've had for a while and you've seen the first half of the season, some of what they do. And to think that they just like made a complete 180, I think is a little naive. And again, it's not I'm not trying to say these as knocks against the individual players, because I don't think that's particularly fair when I'm saying they're being asked to do a lot and putting in positions that are difficult. I'm I really think the coaching is a is a major concern and the tactics. And if I'm going to be honest with you guys, I don't think Tata wants to go to the playoffs. I think he wants the season to be over and he wants to prepare for next season. And that's me being honest and cynical. I don't think they want to keep going. It surely doesn't look like it. I think he wants to play young players and let them, I guess, learn on the job. And he's like, you know, this season we've done our we've done what we've done. Look, so to your point, actually, just going to read out a little fact here in the games that Messi missed. It was September 9th, supporting Kansas City all the way through today. Obviously, at the 30 minutes against Toronto. I'll count that one in this just because since September 9th, they have two wins, two losses and two draws just to completely average team that five to loss against Atlanta was damning the two one loss, obviously, in the U.S. Open Cup finals damning the New York City loss is damning because of the playoff hopes there. And this is completely without Lionel Messi. And I mean, nothing has happened for me to counter anything that actually just said. And I don't know if there are many people in the comments that will disagree. And it's looking like and it usually does look like that. Actually, it usually does. But really, are they agreeing with me? They are all agreeing. They always do. Thank you guys so much. But yeah, I mean, look, there's a couple of quotes that came out of the press conference, and it's literally all about Tata Martino talking about all these players are tired. Oh, since the World Cup, this is, you know, the game structure that talking about how many games that they have to play that are left in. No, you have four games left in a month span. Get the job done. You have five substitutions. If your players are tired, make changes. I'm not saying that this team hasn't necessarily been hard done by with injuries and all that kind of stuff. It's soft. It's soft. But I'm tired of hearing after every single time they have a negative or just bad result in general. Players are tired. You know, there's a lot of games coming up. I'm over it. I'm over it. They have to perform, especially at home. That's the thing. I loved when we got to go back earlier on. We were talking about the playoff push after League's Cup, and we were kind of just marking down the dry pink games as, yeah, you know what? They're probably when their games at home, it's electric. They got the home field advantage. Yeah, we were. That was a shoe in almost. Not necessarily, but we almost considered it. We were really worried about the games on the road. Now we have to worry about literally every single game. I am extremely worried about this team going in a filter field because there's still going to be 60,000 people there. Well, and here's like here's my favorite example to always give. And obviously we're not comparing apples to apples, but Manchester City, they play in the Premier League, the Champions League, the Carabao Cup and the FA Cup. Do they do you buy March or April? Yeah. You know, you see coaches complain as always, you know, whatever. But do they put out do they rotate and put out their best performance every game? Yeah. Does do most teams in England, in Europe or Spain and France? Do they do that? Yeah. Like if you want to be in other tournaments, you want to play in the Champions League, you want to play in the FA Cup or in our case, the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open. If you want to play in these tournaments and you rotate your team, that's why you're professionals and that's why you're all paid either hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, because that's what you do is you when you're put on the field, you you play. So I don't take that excuse either. I think that's like and again, I'm not blaming the young players. I'm blaming the coaching, the tactics, the rotations, because, you know, yeah, we want the young players to perform and I expect better out of some of them. But I mean, what do you think, Benjamin Kramasky at 18 years old is going to be like the savior of this team? Is he going to become Lionel Messi and score and do, you know, magician's tricks and win us every single game? No. Like why? Why are you trying to make it seem like that? You know, why are you putting or Facundo Farias? Same thing. You're trying to make him score seven goals and do seven assists a game like you're not setting up complementary soccer. I think that that doesn't have confidence in the other players because for some reason, because he I mean, easily it could have been Mota instead of Kramasky. It could have been maybe Stefanelli somewhere in there. He's he's available. Maybe he could have played. I don't know if if in the mid I don't know if somebody like Kristoff could have gotten some some rest as well, being that he's on the older side with maybe sailor. I don't know. There's there's just this player. There's other players. I just don't know if that has confidence in him. But I guess to your point, maybe he is milking them way too much and using some of them way too much. But at the same time, it's like I'm I don't know where on the spectrum it falls because I'm not going to put it all on that, because even if you're tired, I think that some of it has to do with them being tired. I just also think some of it's poor play. I'm not going to I'm not going to say that everything that we've seen for Miami is just because the players are tired and fatigued. I think it's also like you they're just not playing well regardless. So I think that they're both factor in somehow how much each side does. I don't know. But I just I wouldn't use fatigue as an excuse. I think that I think that that that should rotate more. So I'll agree with you that in that sense. But I'm not going to say everything is because of fatigue. They're simply just not playing well. They're the passes, the the runs, the shots, everything. It's just it's just been off. People don't like my Manchester City comparison. Fair enough. I said it was a strike. I wasn't saying I was. I just meant the fact that they play in a bunch of different tournaments like the top, you know, every league, every major league plays in their domestic league and the best performing teams play in other tournaments throughout the year. Like that is how soccer works. That's how a professional, you know, club sports work. So just to reiterate the point, it's not an excuse. Here's a good headline. This Tata Martino have an Argentine. What's where I'm thinking of? Oh, I got a super chat. We're going to put it. Does he have an Argentine bias? Because I'm seeing all the Argentinian players are getting full play in the I'm getting it. I'm not going to say that's a headline. But, you know, it is true, though, that like for this team where there's still so many moving parts and honestly, you're going to have a lot of in the offseason, a lot of decisions to make about players who are going to stay and players who are going to go. Why are you not making rotations? Like, really? I mean, if we're you know, we keep making the same point. Why are you not making rotations to see who is is, you know, able to step up and of the sample size that we've had over the last five games, six games without Messi and some without Alba? OK, well, then you're seeing that the offense isn't being generated in none of those games except for, you know, Toronto, which really doesn't count because it was you know, it's a it's a poor team like every other team that we've played. You're you're seeing that you're not generating any good goal scoring opportunities. Why are you not rotating or trying other things to generate offense? It just does not make a lot of sense to me. To get it back on a positive note, I have learned some new information about Inter-Miami's playoff hopes. It is not necessarily. Well, for a second, I was under the belief that if they're not in control of their own destiny, that if they win all four games, they would still need something else to happen. That is not the case. If they win all four games, they will be a playoff team no matter what. Can you explain that? Yes, because if you look at the table, New York City FC are set on 32 points or sorry, 32 games played with 38 points and Miami are set on 30 points or 30 games played with 33 points. So they're five points behind eighth place New York City FC. Let's say Montreal went out. Let's say Montreal win their last three games and they move up to 46 points. Miami cannot catch that. If New York City FC went out at the very most, they can have 44 points. If Inter-Miami went out, they can have 45 points. If DC United went out, they can only have 43 points and so on and so forth. So Miami right now have the most possible points possible other than CF Montreal. They can go up by one point on New York City FC. The other thing is too, they do have an advantage here in terms of, I don't know necessarily how this is going to work in it. If it's going to become a factor mathematically, it doesn't look like it's going to become a factor, but we'll see. They have nine games won right now and only 30 games played. The only team that has more than nine games won is CF Montreal. So DC United and New York City FC, with way less games to play, have only nine and eight games won. So if Miami are to win those games, they will have a tiebreaker advantage because of the games won number, which is very, very important. It doesn't go straight to gold differential in MLS. It goes to games won. And Miami already have nine. They're on par with New York City and DC and have two games in hand on those teams. And we're still waiting on the DC result. I don't have an update as of right now, but I will try and get a look. But all in all, if Miami win their last four games, they are a playoff team. It's 1-1, by the way, DC United, Vancouver in the 42nd minute. John, I know you have to jump off. Did you have anything you wanted to quickly say? I will say that I, again, was disappointed with tonight's match and really what's gone on with future Miami as of late, but I think that it's good news what Austin just shared with us. So that's good to hear, knowing that being able to salvage that one point when this very clearly looked like it was going to be a loss really helped us out and kind of puts the ball back in our side of the field. So I'm happy with that. Thank you for sharing that information. And let's see what happens. I'm sure we'll have a pod this week talking more about Messi and what's going to happen with him and all the uncertainty. And we'll dive a little bit more into the playoffs. But man, it doesn't matter what happens with this team. We're still fans at the end, and we're going to support them 100 percent. So I think that that's why sometimes you guys will see a lot of passion behind the things that we say, because we want what's best for this team. And sometimes when we don't see them, I guess, really playing up to their fullest potential or at least what we think is their fullest potential, it's a little tough on us. But hey, there's light at the end of the tunnel, right? So we're happy for that. But all right, I'll catch you guys on the next one. Thank you. All right. I think that's a good point, though. Gian signs off really quick before you get to what Gian just said. Giovanni says here the math is assuming D.C. United doesn't win today. D.C. can make 45 points at max. That is correct. D.C. United can make 45 points, but so can enter Miami. And as I just mentioned, Miami will have the number of wins ahead of D.C. They will have more wins than D.C. United. I mean, I think I'm not mistaken. And now Miami probably have some ground to make up in terms of it would have to go down to two wins. I'm pretty sure. I saw a funny comment earlier that said Kramersky is into Miami's Kai Havertz. And that's a little harsh. I think Kai Havertz is like twenty five and makes like hundreds of tens of millions of dollars. So that's maybe a little harsh on Kramersky. But I think Gian just brought up a good point. And I think that's why you're seeing a lot of emotion out of us, as we should. We're fans, right? Like we we understand that the team has taken an exponential leap. But, you know, especially the conversations we've had this week about, you know, the insane hike in season ticket prices, the lack of clarity and really, I mean, unfairness to to viewers and to ticket purchasers about Messi's status and his injury or non-injury. We're feeling some unrest. And I think that the fact that the product on the field is it's again, it's that we're just not seeing like the effort or the full mental fortitude that we we want to see, because, I mean, you know, in the beginning of the season, we lost a lot of games where the other team was better than us. Right. And they just performed better. They had better quality and they did X, Y and Z. But maybe we put in a lot of effort or we did our best. Right now, we're just not doing that. And I think that's what's, you know, that's what's what's hard to swallow is that, you know, this team, what they're what they're now expecting out of fans and the money people are paying to see them and, you know, to support and all of those things. You know, if you want to ask that and if you're going to do that, then we expect to see a lot more out of our team on the field. Right. Effort. Yeah. And that's what really upset us on Wednesday with the US Open Cup final. I mean, that was the highlight of our postgame show. It was just it was baffling to see the lack of effort. But I also think, Ashley, that you have made these points earlier about the coaching. And it comes down to that, too. And I and I, I'm not going to say that I got it completely wrong. But I do believe that the effort and Tata Martino combined both on Wednesday and tonight against New York City FC is just it's a recipe for failure. It's bad. It's obvious. It's obvious. We always say, you know, oh, if we were the coach, we would do this and the other and we don't know it. But we are all seeing glaring things that are not being corrected. Like let's say you start with something and, you know, you're trying to see what combination is going to work. You're trying to get your best out of tired legs, trying to make the playoffs. I get we get all of those things. We're not seeing any in-game adjustments and we're not seeing in second half enough rotation to to warrant your best effort and your best legs. Like the fact that Kramersky has played 90 plus minutes in the last however many games is is so unfair to him. And it's I mean, I'm sure he wants, you know, be on the field, but put in fresher legs and put in some more. Same with Farias. Farias is being asked to do way too much that he's why why on earth should So you're just yeah, it's it's tough to see. But we you know, we do have a good year looking forward to. And I think we all know that. But there's still four games left, you know, or and as of whatever many days ago, there was eight games left or seven games left or six games left. And we have seen the sharp decline. Season wasn't over yet. There's there's a finite amount of games in the MLS season and in you know, that we're watching and we're expecting to see until the very end. Then you have five months off or four months off. You can rest then you're expected to you're being paid to play now. Yeah. And you know, the thing is to like this team won League's Cup, right? They won their first ever trophy with Lionel Messi. That is outstanding, splendid. And it's even more splendid when you think about the fact that it called them qualified them for the CONCACAF Champions Cup in 2024. And it puts them in I am already considering this season as a success. However, I cannot come on here and tell you guys that I'm content with that because it can be more successful. I know that this team was in last place and having to climb up and it was a tough challenge, but they got up on the right foot and they made it more possible than anyone could have imagined more quickly than anybody could have imagined. And now they're just falling off of the cliff. You won the U.S. Open Cup semi-final in Cincinnati. It looks amazing. You get to host a U.S. Open Cup final at Dreyfus Stadium and you fumble to back. I can't accept that just because they were, you know, had a successful transfer window and won League's Cup. I'm not going to accept the fact that this team is on the brink of a playoff push and they're putting in performances like we saw tonight or they're putting in performances like we saw against Atlanta. When we've had four years of disappointment, we've had to deal with mediocrity, not mediocrity, I'd say worse than mediocrity for the last four seasons. So it's not like, you know, we've been prime Barcelona and now we're getting all crazy because we've had three or four bad games. It's not that. It's years. And it's just the fact that it was right. It's right there. It's reachable. This team has shown that they're able to perform and they're simply not performing. And it is due to effort. It is due to coaching. And it's not something that I don't believe any single fan who has sat in the stadium should be content with. It's just not it's not what we're watching at home. We're watching a hundred dollars a year for MLS season pass. Right. And they're hard to earn money to watch these games. Right. And now for the people that want to come see Messi and for the people that want to become Inter-Miami fans and renew their season tickets like the product has to be elevated in terms of, you know, for soccer relations and for business relations. And with what we're seeing tonight and what we saw in the U.S. Open Cup final doesn't look promising right now. However, again, let's bring it back to a little bit of the positive. If Miami win four out of four and let me let me be honest, I know that they have not played well, so I'm not going to say that any of these matches are necessarily shoe ins. These are not games that I will rule Miami out from from the get go. They go against a weaker Chicago who, yes, they're playing Chicago at home. However, Chicago has not been a strong team in MLS. They're still sitting out of the playoff spot. They won their first game tonight since like July 18th, I believe, in MLS, some crazy stuff like that. And they're obviously hopeful to make the playoffs as well, but it's not a great sight. Jardim security has not been a great performer for them. We've got a couple of good young players, but in reality, it's a it's a beatable team. Then you have a home game against Cincinnati, which may be tough, but they just want to support. Yes, they're going to be resting their players. Yeah, they might not be playing exactly. Then you have Charlotte at home and Charlotte awaits around the season. Those are four games that you look at on a calendar and say, if I'm the coach or if I'm anybody in the in the locker room in terms of a player who has knowledge on the league, I'm looking at it saying, guys, it's not hard. We can do this. We can win these four games going forward, and we still control our own destiny despite the lack of results tonight. Somehow, they still control their own destiny, and that's a positive. Let me ask you a simple question, OK? If I were to say that tonight we lost two to one, but you saw effort and you saw a good game plan and you saw that the ball was moving back and forth and they just had more quality and brilliance in the end, how would you feel? I'd still be pissed. OK, but compared to how you feel now? I mean, look again, I guess the one point added necessarily. It obviously puts them in a position where if they went out for me, it's all about playoffs, right? Actually, it's all about playoffs and the projections of being able to get in there and the permutations, I should say. And I think if they were to have lost, it would have been a lot harder for them. So it would have made me more disappointed. I would have liked to see effort. And maybe if I did, I'd be a little bit more hopeful going into these next four games. Yeah, that's a better way of saying it, right? Like, yes, we're saying all of these possibilities of us making the playoffs in the four games. Does it feel good? Right. Do you feel like are you looking forward to watching any of these games? And if they do anything like they did in the last four days, Saturday and Wednesday, I'm sorry, but they're not going to win a game like that. They're just not. They're not going to go to Soldier Field at a packed house. Possibly. I don't know what the whole messy stuff happening. They're not going to go there and win. They're not going to be the Cincinnati team if they bring out half their their quality playing like this for other fans. They won't even be the Charlotte team. Like I playing like they did tonight and on Wednesday is the most unsustainable thing that this team can do for themselves. And they have to step up. They are going to have to step up if they want to win games. I think that that's obviously a really easy thing for me to say and for anybody to understand. But it's reality. And it has to be said because they are not performing to the levels that they should be. There's more quality. I know everyone has talked about Lionel Messi and saying that, you know, he's the only one able to do this. But this team, some of these players have made playoffs before. I do believe that they can do it again. And we have seen quality extracted out of this team. And maybe they were performing to the they were performing to their ceilings. Sure, I can say that that might be a possibility, but I saw the ceiling and I want to see it again, or at least somewhere near that right now. We're going towards it, aiming towards it. It doesn't seem like they're aiming towards it. They're like going like this. You know, I'd rather see this. We'd all rather see this, right? That's that's what you would you'd much. I'd rather see this and go like that than just watch this all the time because it's not inspiring and it's not particularly interesting, to be honest. And this is this is entertainment, first and foremost, not to be not to be cynical, but this is that's what professional sports are there to entertain and there to show effort and interest and skill. And that's just not what we're seeing. And I also think the fact that we all, including the comments and the people watching in the stream, agree that we are all seeing the same thing where it's just it's uninspiring and lacking effort. Now, I mean, yeah, we can talk about some quality that's not being there. The passes aren't the finishing. Yeah, like for sure. Obviously, there's a huge drop off when you don't have Messi and you don't have when you don't have our playing. But you still have Sergio Busquets. You still have Campana. You still have all these players who do have quality to finish in the in the game and to make really positive changes. And and we're just we're not seeing where we're not seeing it in the most basic form. And that is what is frustrating everybody. I truly believe that I would take losses if it meant we saw like the beginning of the season was tough. But shoot, at least we were playing. We were trying. You know, it just doesn't feel it feels like no Messi. OK, well, you know, good job, everyone. We had a good season. Let's not do it. And that's just that's not fair to to to your to your patrons. It's really not. There's there's a lot of things to be said, a lot of things I can still say. And, you know, I've been thinking about, you know, how important I guess Jordi Alba has been to this team. But I want to save that for the preview pod going into Wednesday. I want to talk about the the lack of obviously the wingback depth, because DeAndre Edlin being out to put them in a real big hole. I thought Ruiz, at least. Exactly. That's the only thing. Actually, now that I know I'm going to snowball and say as much as they were lacking their two starting wingbacks, the wingbacks were literally the least of their problems tonight. The least of their problems. You had a 19 year old Noah Allen and an 18 or 19 year old David Ruiz playing as a left wingback and a right wingback in a formation that was trying to go up the middle. And, you know, as Gian mentioned, they were stacking the box in the middle and trying to get the numbers advantage. And it just wasn't working because New York City FC was countering. This is coaching at the end of the day. This is this coaching. So coaching. There's a lot to be said. And you're getting paid a lot of money and you got a coach that's getting a lot of money. And right now, I agree. All I've been hearing from his him is excuses. And you can say what you want about Phil Neville, maybe not the tactical genius or whatever, but he didn't blame the players every game. I can tell you that much that that is that is true. Phil Neville was an interesting one, but I will say he upped his knee. He gave his ups to his players and took the blame a lot of the time. So, well, that's a direct comparison. Let's hear from one of our podcast sponsors and then we will head right out and give you guys a nice little outro before we head into Wednesday's game. Una amiga de Fire Reason Sports Network que tiene mucho tiempo acompañándonos en nuestra cobertura de los equipos del sur de Florida. Si buscas a un agente de seguro de confianza, llama al INET, quien tiene más de 15 años de experiencia con seguros de carros, para dueños de casa, para renta, seguros de vida, de retiro y mucho más. Visita insurancebylinet.com como lo No tienes un buen récord de manejo? No importa, el INET te atiende y te busca la solución a tu problema. Llama ya al 954-581-8800, 954-581-8800 para que recibas un estimado gratis. Gracias a Messi & Co. Hey everybody who is in here, thank you so much for tuning in. For everybody at Messi & Co and Fire Reason Sports, we really appreciate your support. I know the team is not playing well right now, but you guys are in here win, loss or draw, so we really appreciate that. If you haven't already, subscribe to the YouTube channel where you're watching this, turn on the notifications and hit the like button if you guys want to be updated and get everything in your feed about our streams, all the postgame shows and our recorded episodes for the podcast. Do go on YouTube. Speaking of the podcast, if you haven't already, make sure you go and download the episodes and follow the show, whether it's Apple, whether it's Spotify or whether it's Google Play, anywhere you get your podcasts. Type in Messi, look for the logo. I'm usually better at this, I'm so sorry. Type in Messi in the search bar, look for the logo that you see in the top right corner of your screen and you'll find all of our stuff there. We're recording in English and in Spanish every single week. 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