Inter Miami faces another hungry, winless opponent Saturday on the road at Chicago
For the second week in a row, Inter Miami is on the road against a winless opponent at the bottom of the MLS standings.
The Chicago Fire (0-4-1) is mired in a 300-minute scoreless streak, much like FC Cincinnati last weekend, but Inter Miami coach Phil Neville is not taking Saturday’s game (6 p.m., UniMas, TUDN) at Soldier Field lightly. He is demanding that his players build off the 3-2 win over Cincinnati.
“Before the Cincinnati game, I kept reading all these stats about their record, their defeats, these are always dangerous games and that’s what we’ve been hammering on this week about complacency,” Neville said.
“Nobody knocks on your door and gives you three points. You’ve got to go out there and earn it. This is a team that has really good attacking players. If we are not as compact, or we lack concentration and switch off for moments like we did against Cincinnati, we’ll get punished.”
Defender Nico Figal, forward Robbie Robinson and defender Kelvin Leerdam returned to practice from hamstring injuries and were expected to travel to Chicago. It is unknown if or how much they will play.
Neville has been scouting Chicago all week and says they play “a brilliant style of football,” and that their record does not reflect their quality.
Miami (2-2-2) is unbeaten on the road with wins over Philadelphia and Cincinnati and a tie against Nashville. Gonzalo Higuain scored two goals in the win over Cincinnati and was named MLS Player of the Week. His older brother, Federico, started in place of Rodolfo Pizarro, and played 80 minutes, the most he has played since knee surgery in 2019.
Neville did not say if he plans to start Pizarro on Saturday but stressed that he remains a key player.
“Just because I rested him one game, I don’t want anyone to think or believe, particularly him, to think he is not a massive part of my plans. He is,” Neville said. “For us to be successful, we need Rodolfo Pizarro to be the best possible player he can be.
“I think he’s working a little bit too hard. He’s too desperate to succeed, too desperate to score that goal. He just needs to relax and have the confidence we have in him. Being rested and brought out of the match for one game is not going to change my opinion of him. It will happen to the rest of the players as well in this long marathon that we’re on.”
Chicago Fire forward Robert Beric is prepared for a difficult game: “When I look at [Inter Miami], I see a lot of good players there. They have great striker and leader that is Pizarro, Higuain, both of the Higuains, I saw that in Cincinnati they combined really good. You have [Blaise] Matuidi in the middle. You have a lot of good players. We will have to take this game really, really serious and we will have to be focused the whole game because in every part of the game, one of these players can change the game.”
This story was originally published May 21, 2021 at 1:57 PM.