Everything you need to know as Inter Miami (minus Messi) plays Sporting KC on Saturday
Inter Miami will have to play Sporting Kansas City on Saturday without Lionel Messi and seven other players who are on national team duty; but coach Tata Martino has full confidence that his remaining roster is strong enough to pull out a much-needed home win.
Goalkeeper Drake Callender was called into U.S. camp but stayed behind to play this game before joining Team USA for the Tuesday friendly against Oman in Minnesota.
Other regular starters expected to be in the lineup include Messi’s former FC Barcelona teammates Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, right back DeAndre Yedlin, center back Kamal Miller, forward Leo Campana, midfielder Dixon Arroyo, and recent signees Tomas Aviles and Facundo Farias, who scored in the 3-1 win at Los Angeles FC on Saturday.
“We have a very competitive team to put up against Kansas,” Martino said.
Players who will be missing are Messi, Benjamin Cremaschi (USA), Sergiy Kryvtsov (Ukraine), Robert Taylor (Finland), Josef Martinez (Venezuela), David Ruiz (Honduras), Diego Gomez (Paraguay), and Edison Azcona (Dominican Republic).
Asked who will replace Messi, who has contributed 11 goals and five assists over the team’s 11-game unbeaten streak, Martino smiled and suggested that nobody can truly replace him.
“Well, that’s difficult to answer when it’s asked like that, but we have an idea of who will play,” Martino said. “We will adapt our system to the players we have available and the way Kansas plays.”
Martino said he and his staff have been preparing for the depleted roster in Saturday’s game (7:30 p.m., Apple TV MLS Season Pass) for the past three weeks when national team invitations started leaking out.
It is a critical game for both teams as Miami and Kansas City are desperate to move into playoff position. Kansas City began the season winless through its first 10 matches, but, like Miami, has turned things around.
After back-to-back home wins, including a 2-1 victory last week against Western Conference leader St. Louis, KC can reach the playoff line by beating Miami. Kansas City’s Mexican forward Alan Pulido scored both goals last weekend and has four braces over the past 10 games. He ranks fourth in the league with 12 goals after missing last season with a knee injury.
“Kansas is also motivated to make the playoffs, has won a lot of games, and is a team that for many years has done well under [coach] Peter [Vermes], so it’s a very difficult team to face right now,” Martino said. “Alan is a forward who can play well in front of the goal, but also can also retreat, he is recovered from his injury, so we have to be very careful with him.”
KC defender Andreu Fontas, a Spaniard and former Barcelona teammate of Messi, Busquets and Alba, is especially excited for the game.
“It will be amazing and special to play against Busi and Jordi,” Fontas said. “The proved how good they are coming to the United States with the motivation to make this team better, which they have. It shows how committed and professional they are that they have won at the highest level and are still going for more.”
Inter Miami is unbeaten in 11 games since its summer overhaul, but with nine games left remains in 14th place in the MLS East with 25 points, eight points shy of the final play-in spot held by D.C. United.
The top seven teams in each conference earn automatic berths. The eighth- and nine-place teams enter a wild card play-in for the final spot.
Over the past three seasons, teams needed an average of 43 points to finish in ninth place. If that holds true this year, Miami must earn two points per game for the remainder of the season to have a shot at the post-season.
Miami has gone 2-0-1 in the past two weeks in its return to MLS play, including a statement 3-1 road win over reigning MLS Cup champions LAFC last Sunday.
“We will miss Leo, of course, but we have high quality players and Leo has raised the level of everyone on the team, lifted our confidence, we are a totally different team than we were before,” Campana said.
