What to know as Inter Miami travels 7,600 miles for road games at San Jose, Montreal
Inter Miami will travel 7,600 miles this week and crisscross the United States and Canada for road games against the San Jose Earthquakes on Wednesday and CF Montreal on Saturday.
It is the longest road trip in club history, and surely among the most miles any MLS team has traveled in one week.
The team is motivated after a wild 4-4 home tie against FC Cincinnati last weekend. Gonzalo Higuain scored a first-half hat trick and Miami led 3-2 with 10 minutes to go but conceded two goals over a seven-minute stretch. Christopher McVey salvaged a tie for Miami with an extra-time goal just before the final whistle.
Had Miami won, it would have moved up to the playoff zone in seventh place. Instead, it remained in 11th place with a 7-10-5 record with 12 games remaining.
“We’re frustrated, still angry,” coach Phil Neville said. “That was a game that was there for us. I want us to use that frustration and anger to really attack the next two games. We know what our form is away from home, and we need to reverse that very quickly. We need to keep clean sheets.”
The men in pink have a 1-7-2 record away from home, and this two-game road swing presents unique challenges.
“We’re playing two teams with different styles of play, on two ends of the country, different climates, different time zones, we’re going to have to use all 22 players,” Neville said. Higuain will start at center forward, Neville said, but Leo Campana will also play.
The team flew out west on Monday to get acclimated to the time change and will fly from San Jose to Montreal on Thursday to train two days there before the weekend game.
“These guys literally love each other, love being around each other, so this gives them a chance to get closer, forge a togetherness and spirit,” Neville said. “One of the things I’ve loved about working in MLS is these road trips foster experiences that are there the rest of your life.”
San Jose is in 13th place in the West, but playing better under interim coach Alex Covelo, who took over when Matias Almeyda was let go on April 18. The Earthquakes were winless through their first seven games and have gone 4-3-4 under Covelo.
Jeremy Ebobisse is San Jose’s leading scorer with 12 goals and a player to watch on Wednesday (10:30 p.m., My33).
One of Miami’s points of emphasis this week is to clamp down on defense. After struggling to score for much of the season, the attack has finally come alive with seven goals over the past three games, but the team has given up eight goals during that stretch.
“Defending starts from the front, it’s not just four players at the back and the keeper,” Neville said. “The defending is throughout the team. We defend as a team and attack as a team.”
McVey, a left back, agreed that the onus in on the whole team to defend better.
“We finally scored a few more goals, so that part is good, but then we let in four goals,” McVey said. “The goals (we allowed) were all similar, crosses in the box. Even when we are attacking, in the offense, we need to think about what we’re doing defensively. There’s a lot of times we lose the ball, we’re not where we should be and that makes it too easy for them to counterattack. Right now, we just have to focus on getting three points every game.”