Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez led a players-only meeting after Inter Miami’s 3-0 loss to Orlando City last weekend.
The embarrassing loss to a state rival Miami was the team’s fifth defeat in seven games, including the recent elimination in the Concacaf Champions Cup semi-finals.
Miami defender Ian Fray told reporters on Friday that this week’s training sessions had increased in intensity. Fray, 22, revealed that the mood at the club has shifted significantly during the club’s poor run of form. Miami will travel to Philadelphia to face the Union on Saturday night.
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“Obviously we’ve had a rough stretch of games that we’re not used to,” Fray said. “This week has been the hardest week of training I think we’ve had all season. The guys have really come together and the intensity has been high. The coaches made that change in practice where we’re really working extra hard and the players are taking the accountability to put in the extra work. We’re ready for this game.”
Fray was asked if head coach Javier Mascherano had warned the players this week about the change in attitude. “No, not really,” he said. “We all know we’re not in a good moment.”
“It’s been a productive week but nothing different than what we’ve been doing,” Mascherano said on Friday. Asked if there had been a focus on more intensity, Mascherano nodded and said, “Perhaps, yes.”
Fray said that Messi and Suarez gathered the players together after the loss to Orlando and demanded that “we turn things around.” “We have players here who maybe know how to turn things like this around. It’s on us to do that,” Fray added.
The last few weeks have seen Messi’s frustration reach a breaking point.
The Argentina captain has lost his cool in consecutive matches, often targeting referees with his ire. Messi, 37, was nearly sent off after the final whistle in Miami’s 3-3 draw with San Jose on May 14. Messi had a verbal altercation with match referee Joe Dickerson after the match. Dickerson warned Messi to “Walk away” or risk receiving his second yellow.
San Jose head coach Bruce Arena happened to be in the same vicinity and gently ushered Messi away from the match officials.
“He was obviously not happy,” Arena told reporters afterwards. “And I really wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to get a red card, and that’s why I just tried to move him out of the way. Because for him to get a red card at the end of the game would have been ridiculous. So I just wanted to make sure we get him out of there and he’s ready to play the next game for Miami.”
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A week later, Miami were thoroughly outclassed and outworked by Orlando City. Mascherano has been unable to find the right in-game alternatives to change the club’s fortunes. Miami has been porous and chaotically unorganized on the defensive side of the ball, which has led to some easy transition goals for opponents. After the Orlando loss, Messi spoke to Apple TV.
“The truth is it hurts to lose another game,” Messi said. “We’re coming off a period of poor results but we have to keep working and think about what’s ahead of us. There are three or four more games to finish the month, and we have to finish in the best manner possible to take on the Club World Cup.”
He then took aim at MLS refereeing. “And there was a rare play where one of their players passed the ball back to the goalkeeper, and the referee said that, he himself told me, he didn’t know the rule, that he didn’t think that happened, that he didn’t understand it…but something always happens with the referees and specific plays. MLS needs to pay more attention to the situation with the referees.”
In February, Messi was fined by MLS for grabbing the neck of an opposing team’s assistant coach. This occurred after a heated 2-2 draw with NYCFC in Fort Lauderdale to start the MLS season. It was Messi’s first-ever fine as an MLS player.Inter Miami are in sixth place in the Eastern Conference after 13 matches.
Philadelphia, surprisingly, sits atop the Eastern Conference standings due to goal differential. The Union and FC Cincinnati both currently have 29 points.
(Top image: CHRIS ARJOON/AFP via Getty Images)
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