Gerardo Martino lamented Inter Miami’s lack of effectiveness, which fell 2-1 against Atlanta United on Saturday night at Mercedes Benz Stadium in front of 68,455 spectators.
Because of this, Inter Miami will have to play a third and final match against Atlanta next Saturday (8 p.m.) at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, to advance to the semifinals.
To top it off, that clash of life and death is another burden for the star Lionel Messi, who must join the Argentine team without pause for the qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup.
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The Argentine will visit Paraguay in Asuncion on November 14 and will receive Peru in Buenos Aires five days later.
After Inter Miami’s downfall against Atlanta United, Martino confessed to his frustration at his team’s poor effectiveness.
In the regular season, the squad became the top scorer with 79 goals in 34 games, with an average of more than two so many per match.
“In the face of what happened to Atlanta, we will have to talk a lot about the effectiveness of our team, that’s where we have failed,” the strategist ruled.
The peace of mind is that we have several attacking plays, making it look like a joke the goal we did.
Indeed, near the end of the first half (40 minutes) United archer Brad Guzan was going to take out the ball and Federico Redondo subdued it.
Guzan dropped the ball, Redondo took it and passed it to center David Martinez, who made a hat to overcome defenders who tried to guard the empty bow.
That seemed to be enough to secure the ranking because, in the one-way match, they had won 2-1.
It wasn’t like that. On 58 minutes, Derrick Williams took advantage of an aerial ball served on a diagonal and connected head-on to overcome Drake Callender.
Then the ladder of cold water fell to the Rosancers in the replacement time (90-4) when in great play Xande Silva scored the win.
We had four attackers in the last 10 minutes; we weren’t thin for the goal. We were optimistic even in the penalties, for the quality of players who were on the court, beyond that the search was to win in the 90 minutes.
At all costs, Inter Miami wanted to avoid a third game. This way I wasn’t going to exhaust Messi. It couldn’t be. On the plus side, Martino will be able to compete against Sergio Busquets on Saturday.
Searches suffered a blow in the previous game and also had principles of pneumonia. He didn’t train all week. Today [Sada] was better and needs to recover. We can probably have him on November 9.
Inter Miami is going to need the best it has in the window because Atlanta has already tasted blood and its players are convinced that they can achieve the feat of leaving the best team in the regular season on the way.
“We’re playing without fear,” Atlanta midfielder Dax McCarty said.
We played like we did not have anything to lose. And we like that. We have confidence and we feel we can go home and beat them.
Nothing will be easy for either of us, although the pressure has now passed alongside Inter Miami. If you compare the templates, however, the balance tilts next to the club.
Many of our players have played games of enormous importance. We have a way of playing that we haven’t changed. I am very pleased with what they did [Saturday], beyond frustration with defeat.
In fact, Inter Miami has world champions such as Messi and Busquets and players who have won the Champions League such as Jordi Alba and Luis Suarez, as well as having a cast full of talent and hunger for triumphs.
They should only bock the ball and avoid the condition on Saturday night. “They were more effective than us,” Martino summed up. They got there less and scored two goals.
