Inter Miami Advances in Leagues Cup
Inter Miami overcomes challenges to defeat Toronto FC 4-3 in a thrilling match, advancing to the Round of 16 despite playing with 10 men. Goals by Rojas, Gomez, and Suarez, assisted by Alba, lead to a wild game. Toronto fights back but falls short. Messi watches from the stands as Miami secures victory
#InterMiami #Soccer #ChaseStadium #MidweekGame #WildGame
#InterMiami #Soccer #ChaseStadium #MidweekGame #WildGame
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00:00Heavy rush-hour traffic, a late-afternoon rainstorm, and a messy Les Midweek League's Cup game meant a year-low crowd at Chase Stadium Thursday night as defending champion Inter-Miami edged Toronto FC 4-3 to advance to the round of 16, despite going down a man midway through the first half.
00:18The team rewarded the 10,543 fans who showed up with a barrage of early goals and a wild game.
00:26Inter-Miami cruised to a 3-1 lead after 20 minutes, with goals by Matias Rojas,
00:32Diego Gomez and Luis Suarez, before the game got tense.
00:37Jordi Alba had all three assists and finished with a career-high 4 for the night.
00:44We have a No. 10 who plays on the left side, Inter-Miami coach Tata Martino said of Alba.
00:50We have a great assistant from that side.
00:52But we also got big games from Matias and Diego. I thought Fibredondo played a great game,
01:00Yannick Bright when he went in, Sergio, Busquets marking from the centre, left and right.
01:07We had a lot of highlights, and Jordi was certainly one of them.
01:11Two of Toronto's goals came from first-half penalty kicks, and Miami had to play with
01:1510 men after centre-back David Martinez was ejected in the 27th minute.
01:21For the first 20-25 minutes it looked like we were going to score a goal on every attack.
01:27And when you are then faced with so many misfortunes,
01:30you normally would lose, Martino said. And that is the good news for us.
01:37Despite all the unfavourable situations we faced,
01:40if I have to analyse the performance of the team, I liked it very much.
01:44I told the players that the key was overcoming adversity,
01:48and fortunately, we were able to do that.
01:53Toronto coach John Herdman praised his team for fighting back from a 3-1 deficit
01:58against talent-rich Miami.
02:01We were a little flat coming into what was going to be a tough game, Herdman said.
02:06Dealing with Suarez is tough for most teams. We gave them too many opportunities.
02:12We gifted a couple of goals.
02:14It was a wild game. A red card. A lot going on. We started a little rattled,
02:21they scored after two minutes, our heads hadn't cleared and everything they seemed to hit went
02:26in the back of the net. It was a crazy start, but the fight back was important.
02:33We forced some of their errors, but for us it was a missed opportunity.
02:37Lionel Messi is out indefinitely with an ankle injury.
02:41He missed his fourth game in a row and 16th of the season, due to injury, and Copa America.
02:48He watched the game from a field-level suite.
02:51Suarez returned to the starting line-up after sitting out the group-stage game
02:55against Mexican team Tigres last Saturday, which Miami lost 2-1.
03:01Also back in the line-up was Gomez in his first game,
03:04since representing Paraguay in the Paris Olympics.
03:08Key Biscayne teenager Benjamin Kremasky, who was also at the Olympics with Team USA,
03:13was on the bench for Thursday's game and came in late.