Is Messi back? Are fans protesting? Inter Miami - FC Cincinnati preview

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I am Ashley and I'm here with my great co-host Gian, and we are going to be talking all things Inter Miami, our preview versus FC Cincinnati, which is going to be taking place tomorrow night at Drive Pink Stadium in Fort Lauderdale. Lots to discuss, lots of big storylines, lots of what-ifs happening with the club, with the opposition, but just to start, since we last spoke on that beautiful Wednesday postgame, how are you doing, Gian? I'm doing a lot better. I will say I cooled down. I definitely was at a tough place, but no, much better, and I think that there's been some news that will probably be good news for Inter Miami fans as we move forward and look into next game. So I'm doing good. It's nice to be here. Good, awesome. Yeah, let's start there because the big question on everyone's mind, I would say for legitimately the first time since the Toronto game, is Lionel Messi going to be playing tomorrow? Is he going to start? Is he coming off the bench? Is he back from injury? Lots of questions, lots of unknowns. We saw today that both Lionel Messi and the club posted photos and basically previewing his involvement in the match tomorrow, so all the signs are pointing toward his participation. How much he's going to play, we don't know, but we're happy about that, right? If he's healthy and he's able to contribute, even if we don't know exactly, maybe it could be a little too late in terms of the MLS playoff push, but still having him on the field representing Inter Miami is what we all want and what is the future of this club. So what are your thoughts? Do you think he's going to start? Do you think he's going to come off the bench? Do you think he's going to play? I just think it's good news that he actually hit the field with the rest of the team and participated in the heavier type of drills, the more involved type of team drills and participated in things that were more extenuating physically than I think that he was prior to this last practice, because we saw that he was coming out sometimes for a few minutes right at the tail end of the media session. Apparently he was training on his own. He wasn't really involved in anything that kind of would need him to exert himself in any way. So I think that's a really good sign just to see him practicing normally now with his teammates. I think that's going to be a big deal for the team also from a confidence perspective and a morale perspective. That's definitely going to be a morale booster for the team to have Messi training in much better form with them. So I think that that leads me to believe that he probably starts especially I think he starts also because the plan is probably to have him play in Argentina. I think he wants to play for Argentina and I don't think especially after all this time of not logging time on the field to just go in without having any meaningful play for Inter Miami to just step onto an international stage and play for a World Cup qualifiers in South America. And as we all know, World Cup qualifiers are really tough and very physical. So I don't think that he wants to put himself through that. So he needs training will only I think condition him so much he needs gameplay, real gameplay for the club. So I think that that's one of the reasons why we'll see him not to mention while it no longer really depends solely on us. As far as the playoff push is concerned, it really does depend on what other teams do as well. I think that there's still a chance and I think that that's why he also wants to participate to give kind of the team hopes with hopefully winning against Cincinnati. Not that it's going to be any easy feat, but if he does win and then he leaves and doesn't play next game, at least he's still leaving them in a position where hopefully they can continue on and hopefully win the next match, which I believe is after Cincinnati against Charlotte. So I definitely think that we will see him play. If he doesn't play from the beginning, then hopefully he gets maybe 30 minutes in the second half. But I think it's really important that he does see some time before he goes to Argentina. That's going to be pivotal in making sure that he doesn't reinjure himself and that he's in good physical shape to endure. I don't know if it's going to be one or two games with Argentina, we'll see. Yeah, I totally agree. I think he will be playing tomorrow, barring any significant changes in terms of starting or not starting. We know he doesn't normally like to play unless he's going to start and play. That's kind of his style. And so I could see him starting and I think just from the boost for the club, I can see him starting. But if they're trying to be more cautious than they had been in the past with the incident with Toronto, maybe he comes off the bench. But yeah, he definitely will play tomorrow as far as I'm concerned. But before we go sort of into the actual game preview and talking about the lineups and our opposition, it's been an interesting, as we know, week, week and a half for Inter Miami with some lows. We won't lie, you know, we've experienced a lot of ups, but there's been a couple of downs this past week. And another wrench in the plot is that we found out today from various reports that La Familia, the supporters section at Inter Miami games, loyal, loyal fan base who have been supporting the team since the inception and the first game in 2020, was going to protest tomorrow's game and they were going to not show up and they were going to leave an empty supporter section to protest what we all know now as, you know, a pretty significant spike in ticket prices for next season. And obviously, it coincides poorly with the fact that Messi hasn't been able to play and that overall the team has just not been performing at a high level. You've seen a decline. We've seen a lot of unknowns with the team, you know, put that together with the huge increase in ticket prices. There's been some unrest and they were going to not go tomorrow's game and protest and the club caught wind of it and they've set up a meeting. I don't know the details of it and I don't know when it's going to happen, what it's specifically about, if it's even possible to change the ticket prices because people have started, you know, paying them, like have renewed their season tickets, so I don't know how that would work or, you know, what the demands are. But La Familia will be attending the game tomorrow. However, expect maybe a little bit more of a subdued atmosphere, maybe not as much of the songs and the instruments and things like that to kind of show, you know, yeah, we have Messi and you've provided us supporters with so many great things this season. We can see the future is bright, but don't take advantage of us. And, you know, we've seen it with big clubs and their supporters, their ultras all over the world, show time and time again that no one player or one kind of selfish act, not by Messi, but I mean like by the team, by the club, overtakes the supporter. No one's bigger than the fans. And I think it's a good, it's a good precedent to set. It's an important message to that, because again, we're not blaming Messi or any of our big players who have performed so well. If he's hurt, he's hurt. But it's the fact that the way the club has handled it, the clear commercialization of everything and having to put the fans to the ringer isn't being taken lightly. What are your thoughts on all of it? Yeah. So I don't know how or if it will in any way affect pricing for any season tickets, especially outside of the supporter section. I don't, I don't really see that happening. Like they're not going to go in and change stuff for anybody else. But what I do think is I don't know, and there hasn't been much information on this. I don't know how much ticket prices changed for the actual supporters section themselves, because as we know, the supporter sections, especially the biggest groups have a lot of power in soccer when it comes to the clubs, because the clubs depend on the supporter section to be the loudest, to bring the atmosphere, to hyphen up the game and to always be behind the team. They're the ones that are the most loyal. Sometimes when, especially before Messi arrived, when you had a few hundred people in the stands, they were always showing up. It didn't matter who played, who Inter Miami played against, didn't matter who's on the team. It will never matter who's on the team for the supporters section. So I think that that's one of the reasons why the supporter sections have so much power and Inter Miami knows this. So they're going to respect what supporter section says. And if the supporter section wants to have a meeting, they're going to give them that meeting. They've given meetings to the supporter section in the past numerous times. They have a really good working relationship. So I don't know how much, again, I don't know also the validity of the report. So the reports do exist. I don't know the validity of them yet, but I think that if that's the case, something must be going on there. We know that usually clubs have an allotment of tickets for the supporters groups at a discounted price. That's typically how it works across all soccer. So again, I don't know with this change in season tickets, I assume there must've been some change for the allotment and tickets for the supporter section where possibly the supporters groups were saying, yeah, that's too much. You can't do that to us. We're here every game, rain or shine, no matter who plays, we're not selling our tickets. We're not the guys that are going to be on the resale market, giving it up. We're going to be here supporting a hundred percent. So maybe that's a factor that may be played into it. The other thing is also that we have to remember the supporters group is also not just one group. There are a lot of, there are a few different groups within there. You've got Vice City, which is the largest one there. You've got Southern Legion. I think you've got you've got a few different ones. So I also wonder with those reports, is it one of the groups that said that? Is it a couple of groups that got together? That's something that I would be interested to find out because I think a lot of these groups are separate. So it would take a lot. It would take a lot for them to get together and to have everybody buy into, Hey, we're not going to give our 100%. Like that's these guys give a hundred percent no matter what. So, so again, there are these reports out there. It'd be interesting to see tomorrow. What how much I think, yeah, what the environment's like and how much of that of those reports are, I don't know if true or maybe how much still holds to what is being reported tomorrow. So that'll definitely be something interesting, but I don't, I don't in any way expect there to be nothing at all going on there. There's, they're going to be, there are, there are diehard fans that doesn't matter what's happening. They're going to show up. So, yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think it will be interesting because it's a really, really important time for the club right now. This juncture is really, really important because no player is bigger than the club and bigger than the supporters. And this is again, there's no, I mean, at least for me personally, I don't blame Messi at all for anything that's transpired over the last few weeks. If he's been injured, he's injured and it's not his job as a player to tell people or what, you know, to, and it's not in, he's obviously not the one choosing the ticket prices for next year. Like there's only so many things that are in his control, right? When he can play his availability and performing when he's on the field and every single minute he's been on the field so far for Inter-Miami, he has given 100% and performed at still the highest level. The issue is of course, with the club's handling of everything and just, you know, the, the worries about the commercialization and just, you know, the fact that the prices we've seen all the comparisons that the, the cheapest ticket for, for the supporter section or whatever, for season tickets for next season is more than like what? 85% of the Premier League club season ticket prices or something like that. Yeah. It's unsustainable and the messy won't be here forever. Like he's not going to be here forever. He's going to hopefully be here for at least two more years, hopefully, but he's not going to be here forever. And, and Inter-Miami, if they want to continue and, you know, give the fans what they deserve, they're building this brand new, beautiful stadium. They have a South Florida diverse, vibrant community who are ready to support this team continuously. They need to make the right decisions. And so again, we don't know the validity of everything with, with these reports. I'm sure more information will come out. I will be at the game tomorrow, so I'll let everybody know kind of how the environment goes, but actually something interesting. I think that, I think that the biggest issue that people are having with is the communication because, you know, to your point, I don't think anybody's really angry at Messi. If he doesn't feel like he can play, then that's something you have to respect. And if he doesn't feel like he can play, then I want to make sure he doesn't play because as a fan and other fans want to make sure that, you know, this is a two and a half year deal here that we're going to be with him. We don't want to rush him if he can't. And if there's anybody that wants to play more than it's going to be messy, he wants to play every single game if he can. So I don't think many people have an issue with that. I think what people have an issue with is they don't really believe. I think that they think that into the Miami knows or knew that message wasn't going to play for a certain amount of games and they feel like they were being lied to. And instead of being told, Hey, from day one or maybe a couple of weeks in, Hey, this is what Messi has. He's going to be out three to four weeks or four to five weeks. And then that way, you know, there are fans that don't, it doesn't matter if he plays or not, they're going to show up, but we have to understand this is MLS and in the United States, this isn't European soccer that has been around for a hundred years where there are diehard fans that are just, it doesn't matter who plays. We've got, this is, this is a show, the greatest show on earth. You've got people aside from the fans. Yeah. And there's fans that are coming in because of messy, which was from the beginning, the goal was to bring in new people into MLS. And they think that they're being lied to so that they can continue to buy tickets thinking that messy is going to be there when they believe that now, as this has unfolded, that it seems like into Miami, according to them knew from the beginning, he wasn't going to play until tomorrow, but he kept, they didn't say anything so that people will continue to buy tickets. I think that that's what some people believe and what bothers them the most. And you take into consideration what just happened the last game against Chicago, where the released a report that showed messy as questionable, but he didn't even travel. So when you start to put the pieces together, it shows something kind of ugly that I don't want to accuse anybody or say anything, but it actually in this business, it's optics. Like you're somebody that dabbles in marketing. I've dabbled in marketing or do marketing. It's all about optics and the optics look kind of bad. So yeah. So I think that that's kind of the issue that a lot of fans have had with as far as being frustrated or angry with the, with the club is these aren't $20 tickets. These aren't $50 tickets. You've got people that are investing money that maybe shouldn't even be investing that money that maybe don't have enough for other things and are taking away to put three, $400 on a ticket to take their kid to a game where they're being given this false hope in their eyes and thinking, nah, you knew, you guys knew from the beginning, he wasn't going to play in just so I can buy these tickets. So not to go off anymore on it, but I think that that's what it, that's what it is. But I don't think anybody's mad at messy to be to your point. Yeah. And you know, there's, there's a lot of different factors like mitigating factors that matter. And so, you know, people will say, um, you know, you can't expect messy to play every single game. If you, if you go and you spend all this money and you, and he's not there, then that's, you know, that's a risk you took in normal situations. Yes. But that's when you're, when you're honest about an injury, right? Like that sometimes happens, but there's a couple, like, here's a couple of different things. Number one, they needed to be honest about the timeline and for the people who bought the tickets for soldier field in advance, you know, three weeks ago or four weeks ago or whenever messy signed and the scalpers who did it, if, um, if they found out three or four weeks ago, then like sucks for you, you, if you took a risk and you, and it didn't pay off, but at least you, you knew, and, and for the scalpers who bought it and then they lose money, I feel 0% of remorse, right? Like that, that's part of the game. It happens, but for your regular fans, you know, with MLS and with everything, you know, what they're doing and how much money they're giving Leo and what they're trying to build. Yeah. You can say, it's not all about him. We, you know, there's other professionals. You should still come to that. Maybe true, but maybe they need to see him in the first game that they pay for that they go to, or that they're making a whole thing. Then you want to have them keep coming. And so just the handling of it. I mean, you had David Beckham, you had, um, you had, um, uh, Zlatan and, you know, a couple other big names who have come over the years. And it just seems as if they've never had, and obviously no one Beckham was close, but obviously no one is as good as messy. And at this current time or have as much of a global brand, but Beckham was close. And so, you know, especially if you've seen the documentary this week, like he was everything in the world. And the fact that MLS is looking like, and especially into Miami, but MLS overall looking like a bunch of amateurs, not knowing how to handle this and, and not thinking five minutes ahead of understanding what they need to get. Cause in America, you're right. It's not all about the love of the sport or the passion or the things that, you know, the hundreds of years of tradition, that's not how that's maybe at baseball, that's football in America, that's not soccer. And if you're trying to, you know, get people to start attending all of these games and get their support and get them to get the apple, you know, season pass and to, to become passionate about it. You can't lie to them. And, and over since September 21st, since the initial injury with, with Argentina, and again, it's not messy job, but for everyone around from the club to the, to the league, they have lied continuously about it to everybody. And no, one's going to trust it next year, especially when you have Copa America happening where everyone and their mother knows that, that Argentina is the priority for messy. People are going to not want to buy games because they're going to be like, man, I don't know if he's going to show up. And now inter Miami's tripling quadrupling prices, not, not worth it. Whatever I'll see him on TV in, in, in like a month and a half you took, which we saw over the summer, which was this amazing jump to the season. And obviously it helps because he played every game and, you know, he was winning, but you saw the excitement, the spreading of the media, people now being interested in other games because the other game results affected into Miami's playoff spots. You started people being interested in the other stars. You saw a star of, you know, players from Dallas, from Nashville, from MC Cincinnati gain all of these followers after playing into Miami or, you know, being an important match around into Miami, all of these things you're losing, or you're getting people to be very skeptical of it and to have your own fans already be so upset because of the clear, trying to take advantage of the situation. It's really poor to see. And, you know, I want to reiterate, we have a lot of messy fans. We're not blaming messy. It's not his job. He's, he's there to play any plays amazing. And if he's injured and he's unavailable and, you know, he's older and they need to manage it, that is 100% okay. If the fact that maybe it just worked out that by the by now and, you know, going into Argentina, it's just how it worked out. That is how he got healthy. No one would be mad, but it's just how everything has been communicated and hidden. That's, that's been a problem for so long, but we, you know, we'll move on because we've, we've talked about it a lot, but I think it's important for us to kind of make those points as huge inter Miami fans, obviously huge messy fans, but huge inter Miami fans who have been here before and who will continue to be here after messy to understand what the league and what the team needs to do to be able to really maximize this moment and continue growing the club and the community. But so enough about that, let's, let's go ahead and move into the game tomorrow. Our preview versus FC Cincinnati, who are number one in the Eastern conference, who won the supporter shields, community support. Yep. The supporters are a great red hot team who would be difficult to play in any circumstances, but certainly now where we need to win out 100% in order to be able to potentially make the playoffs and also just to give the fans a good solid performance, tough team to play against in those circumstances. Yeah. Yeah. They're a very tough team. I mean, playing them during any moment would be difficult. And I think even more so now where you you're going into this game with so much pressure, so much pressure because you have to win your last three games. You've got to depend on others. So you're going to be score watching as well. You have been struggling as, as a team, Miami has been struggling as of late. They've, they've struggled scoring, struggled winning. They've struggled. I think putting together a good game without messy with you know, there were a couple of games there that we kind of saw some bright spots like against Orlando against Toronto. But other than that, there are, we've seen, I think we've seen this team on opposite side of the spectrum. We saw again, some good signs. And then just a team that you have no faith in, unfortunately, when messy is not around. So I think it's tough, it's tough. And we're going to see how resilient this team is going up against Cincinnati. They can lift themselves up, compose themselves and, and kind of say, you know, screw everything else that's happened. Like who cares that we lost last game? Who cares? You know, we're going to play like, we're just going to look at what's happening today. And I think that's also in the playoff races. Again, it could be daunting knowing that you've got to win the next three. It's kind of just focus on what's going on right now. Just focus on Cincinnati. Don't focus on anything else. Take one game at a time. If messy go comes into play or plays this game, I think it's a huge morale booster. Then the obvious that obviously it makes the team better all around and brings confidence, but it's just a morale booster to have your captain, your number one guy on the field with you. It doesn't seem like I was going to be available. It doesn't seem like I'm gonna be available, but really a, a really tough, but I think if a tough task, but I think that if they pull it together, they haven't enough to win, you know, in Cincinnati is just coming off a loss against the New York Red Bulls. They lost two one. And then prior to that game, they beat Toronto three, two, but in both instances, Toronto was able to score two goals. New York Red Bulls was able to score two goals on them. I'm hoping that Miami sees that and says, Hey, you know, we're, we should be comparable to those teams, especially with messy on the field that we should be able to score. And that shouldn't be, shouldn't be an issue for us. Um, and then we're looking at a team that plays or has played in New York has played a five, three, two formation. So I think that they need to make sure they find a way to be creative, whether for Miami, especially knowing that they're, they might have to deal with a backline of five against Cincinnati is they're going to have to find ways to be good on offense. They're going to have to not just focus on one thing because they're going to get shut down and they just focus on driving the ball right up the middle of the field. They're going to get shut down every time they need to be able to give this New York team different looks, especially with so many on defense, they're going to have to Sorry. Yeah. What did I say? New York, New York, Cincinnati. Um, thank you. So they're going to have to give the Cincinnati team different looks, whether it's at sometimes trying to drive it up the middle of the field, sometimes opening up the wings with, again, we'll talk about who plays, but just based on who's played in the past, you know, opening up the wings with maybe Farias or, or Noah opening up on the right side with either Taylor or Yedlin. And then I think what's going to be important too, is trying to drive plays from the backline. And, and hopefully we've seen Miller in the past and I'll be, I'll be less in the past, be able to place good filtered balls behind the defense into a running Farias or, or, or in this case, maybe Joseph or Campana. So I think that it's going to be important also to have that, the defense at some points with Ivy list and Miller to try to put in some, some balls from the back line and just kind of keep it, keep a good mix. And I think that that's one of the things that intro Miami has kind of lacked these last few games. It's just the creativity and you can kind of understand it again, because Messi's the motor, right? And Messi's the motor. No, no, no, Alba Busquets. If we pay attention to what teams have been doing to lose guests lately, they've been shadowing him a lot, making sure, especially knowing if they don't have messy on the field, the guy that's going to distribute the ball is going to boost the busquets. It doesn't get easier for opposing defenses to make sure if we lock this guy down, we lock the gate, we basically gatekeep the midfield and they're not, it's going to make it so much difficult, more difficult for Miami to build. So kind of finding a way to make sure also that Busquets frees himself up. And then some players elevating their game. Like we know some of these players, what they're capable of. We've seen what could have masking. We've seen what Friday has can do. And those players, I think as of late, and again, it has something to do with messing up being on the field because he takes a lot of the, a lot of eyes off of you and allows you to have a lot more space. But I think that they do, they have to step up their game. They I met, we mentioned this in the post game, uh, last post game that has mentioned many times that Friday has in his eyes is the one that is the one player on inter Miami that is most similar to messy and has the similar skillset to messy, where he is a power on offense. He can create, and there've been times where he's just lacked in that area. So I think that as long as he can step that up, I think that we, we can find a way to win. And the biggest key again, is going to be messy and messy, um, being creative on the offense and, and some players stepping up. And then as far as defense, I don't know if you agree with me, Ashley, but I think the defense has done, um, a good job as far as defending when they're in a good place. The issue has been when they turn the ball over, that has been the biggest deal. So I think, make sure the defense takes care of the ball and figure out a way to make sure your fullbacks do a better job of getting back. And you've mentioned that in the past too. I know. So I know you agree with that is making sure that like, if you're going to have both full, you know, I don't know if maybe you can balance it out and have one fullback not push as high up when another one is like take turns, Gatlin goes up, Noah stay back a bit, or, but a lot of times we turn the ball over fullbacks don't get back. And, and it's just, you know, the, the, the opposing offense puts numbers on, on the counter and they just kill us. So I think it's a manageable game. Uh, there's a chance, but very tough. Yeah, I, I agree with all of your analysis. Um, I tell you what though, I don't think that they can't not do a back five for the rest of these seasons, just because they've shown time and time again, that our fullbacks can be responsible for, for tracking back and balancing the defense and transition. And if we want to play forward, um, we can't do it. So, uh, if messy starts, I can maybe see the 4, 3, 3 stick, but if he doesn't, um, I expect to see a 5, 3, 2 lineup. And, um, yeah, I, I agree with all of your thing. We need everyone to step up. We, there's still, you know, nine points we can get to, uh, to, you know, six of those nine are going to be against a team that is directly above us. And, uh, there's, there's potential. I mean, we can see how other results, you know, DC has been struggling. Um, New York city FC have been pretty good, but they've been very rocky off season. So there's, you know, there's definitely in Chicago to Chicago obviously had that big win on Wednesday, but they'd had a very rocky season. So there's, there's definitely potential. Um, I think most importantly though, is we expect to see effort and just a better overall performance from every individual for these next three games, because you have to also remember for some of these individual players, they need to fight to secure their place on the team for next year. Yep. And the performance is recently in doing that. And I think that with only three games left, excluding playoffs, you need to see, uh, you need to show that you're worth being kept on this roster with some of these guarantee. I mean, we already have guaranteed, uh, eight spots that we know are going to be right. We have our three DPs, our three young DPs, Kamal Miller and Drake calendar. Those are eight guaranteed, 100% going to be there next year. A couple others are guaranteed. I can't think of their contract off the bat, but maybe they could be traded. I don't know. But outside of those eight, there's another, you know, 10 to 11 spots that not guaranteed for anybody. And you need to show your worth and be able to produce a with or without messy. And what we've seen is that not a Kambana that's another one that's obviously guaranteed. But so outside of that, we, we got to see some people really want to step up and show that their quality, like we've said time and time again, you don't have to win every game, but you need to show your worth and your effort. And that's what, and that's, what's been missing. So that being said, starting lineups, who do we think is going to play? And again, we really are unsure about messy. This is the last few games. We've all felt very confident that obviously he's not going to be starting, um, except for the U S open cup final. And that definitely took us all by surprise. But besides that, we all feel very comfortable. He's not starting. I really don't know tomorrow. You know, we, we don't know he he's someone who he doesn't love coming off the bench. I think it doesn't go with his kind of flow and his game and preparation for his body, for his mind, all those things that he has to, he will, but you know, especially if he's going to be starting and playing for Argentina in a couple of days, he may be wanting to do, you know, business as usual. So I'm going to give the lineup, assuming he is not going to start. But again, we, we all know it's subject to, to change. So I think it's going to be a back five. Um, it's going to be, so this is already a part where I'm already in contention with myself because I'm not a hundred percent sure. I mean, I think it's going to be, I think I could see it working two ways, but I'll just give what I think traditionally, it's going to be no Allen on the left, the Andre Edlin on the right. And our three big guys in the middle where that would be, uh, Christophe Kamal Miller and Thomas obvious. I can see a situation where one of those three center backs is rested or doesn't play is dropped. Uh, and you have Robert Taylor be that left back and you have no Allen be the third center back and see that that being a possibility. I'm going to stay for this scenario. It isn't our, our midfield three. It's going to be a Royal and Busquets for sure. Again, I'm also another one where I think it's going to still be Kramashki, even though I think Ruiz does deserve to be playing, but I don't think, especially if it's this setup, he's going to, I don't think he's going to be favor over Kramashki, especially since we know next week, um, he's, he was called up for international duty with a plethora of other players and Kramashki is going to have to play next week. So it's one of those things where you want to keep him in form and in game. And then upfront, uh, it's going to be obviously Joseph if messy starts, I could see it being that exact lineup. But instead of Joseph, it's messy. I could see that being a possibility if it's not the four, three, three. So I know I gave a lot of what ifs because I have so many, there's so many questions. Do the four, three, three, if it's the four, three, three, what do you see in defense? If it's a four, three, three, it's going to be, um, Kamal and obvious. Yeah, I agree. And then midfield, I think, I think next year, if you're thinking about the future, which Tata has, obviously he has to start thinking about it even now. Um, while I don't necessarily think they have to get rid of Christophe, he's not, he's not their starter next year. It's obvious and Kamal Miller a hundred percent. So that's the priority partnership to develop. Yeah, I agree. And then midfield, you said even in the four, three, three, it's, it basically stays the same. And you're talking about, and then up front, who are your top three fight? He has messy and who in the middle, Joseph. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And to be fair to Joseph, I think he, I think he did, especially for the two missed goals. He did everything he was supposed to do as a number nine in that game. He really did. He tracked back a lot and he, he set up a lot of good passes for teammates. He got the shot, a great penalty, but the other teammates didn't do their end of the bargain, you know, and that's, we don't know if that's something that's completely, but Joseph didn't do anything Wednesday that would make me say, Oh God, no, please don't start it. I think he did the most with what he was given because he didn't have a lot of opportunities. The team didn't really do a good job of getting him involved. So I, I, I wouldn't, I think that what he did with what he was given was amazing to set up those two opportunities for a goal that should have been goals. I mean, there was no excuse to miss those, which I think would have changed the game entirely. They would have set a different tone for the game. And we, I think that those two missed shots, unfortunately really damaged the team. Yeah. Huge heights and huge blows before this, you know, before Messi came, we couldn't buy a winner or, you know, the ball to go our way. Then Messi comes and everything seemingly went our way. And then, you know, with the game against New York city FC, how different is our conversation right now? Ruiz's goal goes in, we get those three points. If on Wednesday, one of those two goals goes in, we either draw or get the win. You know, it's a completely different conversation we're having right now, but the tide turned back on us and that's, that's part of football. It's part of soccer. And so it's just going to be a matter of, like you said, the team showing, showing their work. Well, so Ashley, before we go into, into what our scores are going to be or what we are score predictions, I just want to give a shout out to our friends over at Simplify. So Simplify is a professional it company providing solutions for small to medium-sized businesses in West Palm Beach, Broward and Dade counties. So what do they do? They cover everything from your servers to your network infrastructure, to your workstations, mobile devices, and vendor relations with total end-to-end, end-to-end solutions for all your technology and business needs. So those are our friends over at Simplify or Simplify, excuse me. They have really good it solutions for businesses. So make sure you reach out to them at 1-888-294-2083. Again, that's Simplify at 1-888-294-2083. So we just want to thank again, our friends at Simplify. So Ashley, you've had some successes. Not recently. I've been not recently, but to be fair, to be fair, I don't think anyone could have predicted what's been happening over the last three weeks. It's been tough for sure. Yeah. But if you want to, I'll give my prediction and then that way you can close this out with your little magic eight ball prediction that we hope will be right. Do you agree with the lineup or did you have any other players? Oh, no, no, no. I agreed a hundred percent. That's why I didn't really get too into it because I would have said the same thing. I think that at this point in time, we kind of have the regulars, the guys that you can kind of count on and the ones that you named are those guys that you count on. The only one I can see in either lineup, maybe being Iffy would be Grimaskin. That would be the only one. Yeah. I think that it could be Ruiz. It could be Mota. There's a few different. I would love to see Mota play. Yeah. Or even, look, even Stefanelli. Stefanelli is available as well. So that's the only one that I would say is probably interchangeable. So we'll see with that. But other than that, I think you were spot on. That's exactly what I was going to say. So, man, this is a tough one because it also is very dependent. If I'm not even going to, I'm going to have full 100 percent faith in this team, even though I know I had a meltdown on previous postgame. But that's what being a fan is. That's why. Yeah. Yeah. No, 100 percent. And that's what we try to do in this podcast is is blend the analysis with the entertainment that being a fan brings to this. That's why we watch sports, right? Yeah, 100 percent. It was easy and if it was something we all knew what was going to happen, it wouldn't be very fun. 100 percent. All right. So I'm going to go messy or no messy. I'm going to say we win this game because it is a must win, in my opinion. We want to make it to the playoffs. It's going to be at home. And I think that the crowd is going to be behind us. I think that we need to be a very tight game. And I think we come out to one very tight game. Maybe maybe it starts one one and then maybe in the last 20 minutes we score that that last one that takes it home for us. What do you think? I I think it's going to be a little bit more open because I just think in terms of our shape and our discipline and our, you know, exhaustion, both mentally and physically, we're not at the point where we can, I think, keep those, you know, one nil to one one one results anymore, whether it's for or against us. I just don't. So I'm going to, you know, back my team and I'm going to say we're going to win three to one and have a great three. OK, all right. It's going to be great. That's like that's like 60 or 70 percent fan, 30 percent. Yeah. Ninety ten. Yeah. Like sports analysts there. But I like it. I like it. This isn't my analyst take, but it's you know, I think I do think it will be one one at some point in the game. But hopefully in the second half, if Messi comes off the bench, even, you know, we pull away. So that's my hope. This has been a great show. Thank you, as always, Gian. Like I said earlier in the episode, I will be at Driving Stadium. I will be at the game tomorrow night. I know a lot of our fans and viewers are global. But if you're there and you see me come say hi, I'd love to meet you guys and learn more about what you like, don't like about the show, what you want to hear more about. And, you know, we're starting to plan next year and what the season is going to look like and our coverage, our events, all of that fun stuff. So. So, yeah, I will be there. I'm excited because I love going to the games and I love watching our team come hell or high water. So that is it for another episode of Messi & Co. Thank you so much for watching. Make sure to follow us on Twitter at Messi & Co to keep up with all of our latest news, episode updates, feedback on everything that we're working on. Listen to our podcast on all podcast platforms at Apple, Spotify, all the different platforms. Just search Messi and you will see our logo from the top right available to listen to all of our episodes. We will have a live post game tomorrow. I'm not exactly sure who's going to be on it yet, but we will have it. There will be different people giving our feedback. Hopefully it's a good result. Hopefully we'll have great things to continue to talk about. But thank you for listening and have a great weekend. Have a great weekend, everyone. Are you ready to transform your space into a masterpiece? Introducing Mosaics, your destination for stones and more. Mosaics is a family owned business serving the community for over 20 years. With the best quality porcelain, ceramic tiles, and high-end mosaics featuring unique modern designs, Mosaics has everything you need. Dedicated customer service, wholesale distributors, and a passion for excellence. 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