Inter Miami, hungry for first win of the season, hosts Houston Dynamo on Saturday
Inter Miami returns from international break desperate to win its first game of the season Saturday night at home against the Houston Dynamo.
Miami tied its opener 0-0 against the Chicago Fire and lost the next three games. The team has been outscored 10-2 and is tied with Vancouver for lowest-scoring teams in the league.
“We’re four games in and we haven’t won a game (sigh) and it’s been disappointing,” coach Phil Neville said. “I can’t hide from the fact that I’m frustrated. We’re all frustrated with what we’ve seen in the first four games because we expected better. I always go back to my grandparents, my father, who say `Stop moping around and get on with it’. Just go out there and work harder and be even more brutal and ruthless. We need to deliver. I need to deliver.”
Neville said most of the work at practice the past few weeks, in the absence of five players on national duty, has been on the attack, and he hopes to see the results on Saturday (8 p.m., My33).
“I want to see a team play with freedom, with excitement, with enjoyment, scoring goals, attacking football; that’s what I want to see against Houston,” Neville said on Tuesday. “I want them to get the shackles off; I want them to play with a little more freedom.”
Defender DeAndre Yedlin is back from playing for the U.S. national team, Jamaican national team captain Damion Lowe returns, as do Edison Azcona (Dominican Republic), Jairo Quinteros (Bolivia) and Aime Mabika (Zambia). Left backs Brek Shea and Kieran Gibbs are out injured.
Yedlin said he hopes his experiences with the national team will help motivate his Inter Miami teammates.
“I try to bring all of it back, the most thing is trying to have a winning mentality,” he said. “That’s what I try to instill in the players here. It’s a process, but you can see improvements being made, lessons being learned. With a little more time the pieces will start to come together.”
There is a chance goalkeeper Nick Marsman will return from a knee injury after five months. He played with Inter Miami’s MLS 2 reserve team last week and is itching to get back with the first team.
“Nick played his first 90 minutes and had only trained for four days,” Neville said. “In the (MLS 2 game) you could hear his experience in the back, his coaching, and I thought his distribution was out of this world. We want to make sure when we put him back in he’s 100 percent. We’re not going to take any risks.”
Robbie Robinson played a good 45 minutes with MLS 2, Neville said, and is fully fit after a hip injury.
Costa Rican forward Ariel Lassiter said the team is motivated to win in front of the home crowd at DRV PNK Stadium.
“We’re excited to be back home. The team needs a win, we need to win for our fans,” said Lassiter, who joined Miami from the Dynamo this offseason.
“We know what we have to do, we’ve been very focused, and we have a good mentality going into the weekend. We’re looking to get three points and I think we are ready to do that.”
Lassiter said the team has not lost its morale despite the three-game losing streak.
“I definitely see a hunger within the group,” he said. “There is no finger-pointing. We all know that we’re in this together. We all know the situation that we’re in. I think we are very united as a team both on and off the pitch; once we get the first (win) more will come.”
Neville has picked Lassiter’s brain about his former team as Miami prepares a game plan.
“Houston’s a hard-working team, a lot of my old teammates and friends are there so it will be an interesting match for me,” Lassiter said. “They have good players going forward, strong back line, good reinforcements.”
Houston has one win, one loss and two ties. They have scored three goals and are coming off a 1-1 tie with the Colorado Rapids. They are led by Darwin Quintero and Tyler Pasher.
“They’ve got good wide players, a No. 10 that’s really unpredictable and they like to keep possession of the ball,” Neville said. “I’ve been really impressed with them. There’s going to be no easy games.
This story was originally published April 1, 2022 at 9:11 AM.