Here’s what you need to know about Inter Miami road game at Orlando City on Saturday
There is a pep in the step of Inter Miami coaches, players, and staff this week as the team prepares for a Saturday game on the road against Orlando City at Exploria Stadium (8 p.m., My33).
After going winless the first five games of the season, the resurgent Inter Miami has gone 6-3-3 and sits in ninth place with 22 points, only three points behind the Eastern Conference playoff zone, with a game in hand on three teams ahead of them.
In the past two games, Miami beat Minnesota United 2-1 on goals by Indiana Vassilev in the 87th and 90th minutes and tied FC Dallas 1-1 on the road on Leo Campana’s 89th-minute goal.
Thursday, the club announced it acquired 2020 MLS MVP Alejandro Pozuelo in a trade with Toronto FC and last week French winger Coco Jean of RC Lens was signed. Both are expected to boost the team’s goal production once they finalize their visa paperwork.
The club is having success at the youth level, as well. Its U15 team won the MLS Next Cup final over Real Salt Lake and Santiago Morales, son of former MLS great Javi Morales, was named tournament MVP. The U17 team reached the GA Cup semifinals.
Left back Noah Allen, the 18-year-old Pembroke Pines native, scored for the USA in Sunday’s 6-0 win over the Dominican Republic to win the CONCACAF U-20 championship. Team USA earned berths in the 2023 U20 World Cup and 2024 Paris Olympics, as did the Dominican team, which featured Inter Miami’s Edison Azcona and Israel Boatwright from the club’s reserve team.
“Everybody’s excited, everybody’s buzzing,” said right back DeAndre Yedlin.
Inter Miami has finally found its identity and is “on an incline” heading into the second half of the season, Yedlin said.
“Things take time,” he said. “Things take a lot of time, and to build a team is not easy. You have to get the right characters. Everybody has to be bought into the plan and to everybody’s credit, staff included, everybody has bought in. We’ve created a culture that we’re pretty happy about and we continue to build on that culture. We have winners here and it is creeping down into the academies, into the second team. And then that’s when you create a club that makes history.”
Saturday will be the first matchup between Orlando City and Inter Miami in league play this season, but the two met earlier in the year in the Round of 16 of the U.S. Open Cup, with the Lions advancing in a penalty-kick shootout.
The Lions are 7-7-4 with 25 points and coming off a 5-3 loss to D.C. United. Orlando’s leading scorer is Ercan Kara of Austria, who has seven goals.
“We go now into another away game at Orlando, it’s going to be fierce and competitive, a local derby..each time there is more or a rivalry, more intensity,” said Miami coach Phil Neville.
Winger Robert Taylor said the team is extra motivated after losing in a penalty shootout in the U.S. Open Cup game.
“We want to beat them 100 percent, of course, we want to show them what we got and get three points,” Taylor said. “We need to score, take chances. When we score in the last minute it shows we never give up, and that’s a good quality to have in the team.”
Yedlin agreed that one of the team’s goals is to take earlier leads.
“We’re hopefully moving into a zone where we can start dominating teams and killing the game early, being up 2-0, 3-0,” Yedlin said. “I think it’s just at the end of the day, we just have to be more clinical in front of the goal. And that comes from everybody.”
Goalkeeper Nick Marsman is recovered from a back injury and expected to travel to Orlando, although Drake Callender is likely to start. Gonzalo Higuain missed practice Thursday and Friday with an undisclosed illness and probably will not travel. Ariel Lassiter is expected to miss the game with an injured calf.
Orlando coach Oscar Pareja expects a more energized Miami team than the one they faced in the U.S. Open Cup: “They have had a good period and are getting good results. It seems like they’re finding some stability in the way they do things and that’s something we recognize, but we’re trying to be ready and be prepared.”