Inter Miami Secures Key Victory Over Cincinnati in Supporters’ Shield Race

Intro: Inter Miami's Path to the Supporters' Shield It was a big step in the right direction this weekend for Inter Miami in the Supporters Shield race. Maybe another piece of silverware will be in that cabinet soon after the win over Cincinnati. We break it all down here on the Inter Miami weekly show. Fast Start Against Cincinnati: Suarez's Early Goal And welcome back here to Chase Stadium alongside the Arsenal great Kieran Gibbs. I'm Joe Martha Kieran on. Wait, wait. It's been okay. We're getting there. This is the point of the game where Luis Suarez scored against Cincinnati in the match against this this past Saturday. It was that quick. It was 29 seconds into that match that it was one nil Inter Miami. So it's a team now that is just clicking in every single way. Suarez Strikes Again: Miami's Quick 2-0 Lead I mentioned that this piece of silverware might be on its way. The Supporters Shield that that League Cup trophy is awfully lonely right now. But now eight points clear with eight to go over Cincinnati in the Eastern Conference and a top MLS. That's it Joe. It was it was a the big game that everyone was waiting for. And they didn't disappoint did they. It was a it was a great performance. And I think that, you know, they took care of business early on. They landed two big blows, from the main man himself at the moment, Luis Suarez. And you have to give the team a huge amount of credit for, for lost in, you know, the rest of the game with ten men. It's not easy against a team like Cincinnati. Defensive Stand: Playing with 10 Men A great effort from them to to do that and see that without conceding that will give them a lot of confidence. I do think there's a big warning sign. You know, we've going down to ten men. I think the discipline has to change. If we're if we're to go that step further, you know, this was a big step. In order to go and lift a trophy, you have to have an almost perfect, performance. And the discipline is the for me. Could be the Achilles heel, which could which could let them down. So, you know, that's one thing. That's one area that I want them to improve. But like you said, a huge step forward for for Inter Miami an incredible season so far. And we'll come back to what you mentioned there as the Achilles heel. Drake Callender’s Heroics: Keeping Cincinnati at Bay In just a moment. We'll take a look at the highlights first because again it happened fast. It happened furious. It was 29 seconds in and Luis Suarez got the opening goal. And it only took five more minutes after that. But the crowd was rocking and they barely had time to get in their seats before it was already one nil. It was just such a positive start. You know, forward movements, give and goes. I mean, look how Luis Suarez just a job. He's so proactive. He's just ahead of everyone else on on the pitch. And that's why he gets this goal. The way he moves his feet, he sets his first touchdown. And it's a classic Luis Suarez goal. You know a complete poacher and a great finish. And then he pounces. The group does on this give away here. I'm not sure what this was intended for. It was that back pass to the center back but then clear giveaway just back and forth. Back and forth. And Suarez finishes again. Yeah. And again, look how he reacts. He just he he lifts the ball over the defender's head. But watch him straight after he's he's gone. He makes his run. He's so direct. He's decisive. And it's just too late for any defender to stop him. MLS Team of the Matchday Honors: Suarez, Busquets, and Callender And you know he gets a little luck with the deflection. But it's just fantastic striker play. So this starts as a Luis Suarez show with those two goals in six minutes. Then it very quickly becomes a great calendar show. It's just save after save. Inter Miami could have added on to that two nil lead early. It almost felt like that Orlando game. Remember all the way back to March where I think it was 4 or 5 nil? That ended up. But the goals came early. That came fast, they came furious. And then Drake calendar was doing a whole lot of it. Yeah. And Cincinnati had their chances, obviously. But you have to give all the remaining boys on the field credit. You know, the way they sat in two banks of four, you know, they tried their hardest to keep the pressure off of Drake. And he came up with incredible saves when, when needed to. But I thought that the way that they sat in and Sergio Busquets, especially the way he, you know, communicated with his team and dictated the play at the back, he kept Yannick bright close to him. And I thought that the defensive display in the second half was, you know, shows how far this team have come. That really isn't easy to do, by the way, to, to to play with ten men in a big game like that. When you know that Cincinnati is going to be throwing men forward, and trying to get back into the game, that's, a great testament to, to Inter Miami defensively because, you know, we've seen them this year struggle at times. This was not the case in this game. And the three games that we kind of focus on their Drake Callender Sergio Busquets and Luis Suarez of course those three all end up in the team of the match day in MLS this week. You had Suarez as the player of the match day as well, and a little bit of history for Inter Miami. Suarez now three times a player of the match day, Messi has already been named three time player of the match for the first combo in MLS history to have two players three times team of the match or player of the match. Playoff Spot Secured: What’s Next for Miami? They rather all from the same club. So we knew coming into this season that duo would provide some special moments because of the way that international duty and injuries have overlapped. Maybe they haven't been together as much as we thought, but in the moments where they've been asked to shine, both Messi and Suarez answer the bell. Every single time they have, they've they've delivered. And I think, you know, if you would have said even this time last year, the Inter Miami in general would be having a season like they're having, you still would have thought it was, you know, maybe a stretch too far, but it really is happening that they're putting in the numbers. They're, they're delivering for the club week in, week out. It's just been incredible to see. It's, you know, this could go down as one of the seasons, you know, in many, many years. We'll look back at this as, as Inter Miami season. It feels that way. You know at the moment the way things are shaping up. You know the way they've they're outscoring everyone they're scoring many different types of goals. They've gone through patches of, of of disappointment, but they've bounced back really quickly. They're showing all of the signs of, you know, an iconic season. There's nowhere else nowhere else to put it. I mean, it's that's that's the best summation of it. You mentioned some of those numbers. You could go through them. They've already set the club record in wins already in points, already in goals. And with that, they've already clinched a playoff spot, the third fastest team in a 34 match MLS season to clinch a playoff spot. We really haven't even talked about that. We don't want to diminish clinching the playoffs. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it's not the end goal, right? The end goal is to to lift the trophy on December 7th after before then lifting the Supporter Shield right here at Shea Stadium in front of everybody. Focus on Discipline: Correcting Red Card Issues Going into that postseason. So that's the ultimate goal. But you can't lose sight of the little objectives and checkpoints along the way. And it was probably something they spoke about, I would imagine, in the locker room afterwards that, hey, playoff spots clinch. But that's just step one of a few step process here. Yeah I mean listen there'll be a big sigh of relief obviously just just for making the playoffs. I think every team will go through that when they when they make the playoffs. I think for them now there's two ways that they can go about it. They can you know, they can kind of rest on their laurels and take their foot off the gas a little bit. Or they can use this as confidence that, you know, they are the best team in the league. And possibly the, the whole of the MLS East and West. And they're showing that at the moment with the season that they're having. And can they use that now and, and really go and push on, you know, take the eastern conference and, and use that as psychologically, over other teams in the league. Might think they have a shot of beating them in the final. We mentioned that it's between Cincinnati, but there's also Columbus still in the background as well. Columbus is double digit points behind. They do have a couple of games in hand, and there is a head to head between Inter Miami and Columbus coming up in the first week of October. So it's not done invested. But and you look at the numbers, I mean the Supporter Shield winner is going to come from the Eastern Conference. I think we're pretty certain of that. Based on the way the numbers shake out eight points clear of Cincy with eight games to play. And again, Columbus is their double digit points. They have to get a couple of games in hand and there is a head to head. But even if Columbus picks up the maximum points with the games in hand and wins head to head, that only gets them within two points of Inter Miami. So it's starting to look more and more like the passageway to MLS Cup is going to run through Chase Stadium. That's the way that's what we're hoping for. I mean, listen, there's still a long way to go. Football has a funny way of throwing curveballs at you, but, if they keep this form up, I mean, even without the likes of Messi in the team, I think the way that they performed over the last couple of months has been outstanding. You know, I'm, I'm really impressed with, you know, from, from front to back of, of how individually they've performed and collectively they look like a team that have been playing together for, for years, actually. And I think we forget the fact that this is still a very, you know, half very young side, but also still a side that's getting to know each other. Upcoming Challenge: Road Match Against Chicago Fire Sometimes it takes it takes a long time to have a season like they're having, and they're doing it in such quick succession that it feels like we are expecting it now. Which of course we are, because they have so many great players. But it's one thing, you know, expecting it, but it's another thing to go and actually do it. And I'm really impressed of what they've produced so far this season. I'm glad you put it that way. It's only been 13 months. That's it. 13 months since this whole project began at the start of the League Cup last year. Here we are at the end of August now heading into September. So it's 13 months. This team hasn't been together for that long and they're on the brink of accomplishing some pretty historic things. As you mentioned, from front to back. At the back is where we have a great calendar and he's one of the best goalkeepers in the league. He's also maybe on the brink of becoming a best seller because he's done something pretty special with teammate DeAndre Yedlin. Our Miami goalkeeper Drake Calendar emphasizes giving back and extending his influence beyond the pitch through community engagement. As part of the club's Back to School initiative, calendar donated copies of his children's book X Marks the Spot to students at the Foundation of Community Assistance and Leadership. X marks the Spot, co-written with DeAndre Yedlin, as mentioned, introduces mindfulness and the importance of nature for mental health. Closing Thoughts: The Road Ahead for Inter Miami So those are all the things that Drake Callender doing off the field as well. In addition to everything he's doing on the field, it's great to continue seeing as, again, talk about only 13 months since this whole project began. It's only for almost five years since the club began. And and to see that connection already foster with the community is outstanding. Yeah. I mean, if there was anything to typify, you know, Drake's personality, it would be something like this. And DeAndre as well, the pleasure of playing with them both incredible characters. And, you know, with them steering the, the narrative of, of these books, you can you can rest assured that it will be, you know, very positive, inspiring and mindful content in there, which is great for, for the youth. So I'm really happy to see this. I was actually gifted one of the books for, for my son. I haven't, I haven't read it yet, but, I'm excited to, to read it to my son. Yes. Awesome, awesome. And again, that's a good way to good extent that we need an excuse, but it's a good excuse to talk more about Drake on the field as well, because you saw everything he did in the highlights against Cincy. You and I were chatting before we sat down to to do the show today. He's at a point now where, I mean, it's hard to argue shot stopping. wise He's the top or one of the top in the league. And this is a league now that includes Hugo Lloris and so many top class goalkeepers. And you look at Zack Steffen in Colorado and his spot in the national team maybe and Matt Turner now of course over in England as the starter for the U.S and now Drake Callender. All those guys have something in common. It's that maybe now and again you'll get a mistake playing out of the back with the feet, but shot stopping wise, top notch. And Drake is right there with the with the best of them. For me, he's been the best goalkeeper in the league this year. I think the he has progressed tremendously, since his debut to be honest, which wasn't that long ago. Someone who's still very young, but who has the temperament to do anything that he wants in the game because he, he has so much control over his mind. The, nothing fazes him. It seems like he's in a complete, different state when he's on the pitch and actually when he's off the pitch as well. And I think that that's why he's performing so well, because he's managed to get control of, you know, his, his thoughts and everything for him is, is positive when, when he's on the pitch and, you know, when we've seen him make a mistake, we, we see him in the next game bounce back and he he'll pick up a man of the match award, you know, like he's, the just the way to do that as a, as a performer, is probably the most difficult thing to do. And he's got complete control of that. So for me, he's going to have, a long, long career in the game. Touch wood. And he's proven to be, an absolute top, top class goalkeeper, no doubt. There. And before we transition to Chicago and the match coming up this weekend on the road at Soldier Field, one thing I want to go back to the Achilles heel. You mentioned in the highlights that that the discipline, in a way, with some of the red cards picked up has been an Achilles heel. And how do they correct that? I think something that is a good sign that that issue will be corrected a few months back, a few, I guess. This season's all blended together probably a couple of months back. What we talked about as the Achilles heel for the group was conceding quickly. It was that stretch of games where they went at Kansas City, at New England, and a bunch of games in that stretch where we were conceding in the first ten minutes, still coming back to win all of those games, but it was starting to become an issue. Achilles heel was tossed around. When you play a better team, can you still rebound that way? Now you look at the last seven games in all competitions league, Cup and MLS play. Six of the last seven we have scored in the first ten minutes and in some of those cases we scored multiple times in the first ten minutes. So we flipped that from an Achilles heel to a strength. Stands to reason that Tata Martino can get that discipline in the right direction. Going to the playoffs as well. Yeah, I think that that's probably going to become one of his main focuses, just because it is that important. You know, sometimes you can get away with it in games like we did, the other night where, you know, it's just a brilliant defensive display from, from the remaining boys on the field. But it doesn't always work like that. So looking to finish the season strong but also looking to finish all year strong of course. And that's going to be a road game in Chicago against the fire right now. Sitting tied at the bottom of the Eastern Conference with a couple of different teams on 26 points, very much struggling. They just allowed Jordan Shaqiri to leave the group, go back home to Switzerland and start a new there with Basel, where he started his career. So they're a club that's in flux. They're letting players go, they're bringing players up from the second team in the academy and start giving them looks near the bottom. All of that is to say, for Miami, who just beat Chicago 2 to 1 before the League Cup break, this should be three more points, but there's nothing you can take for granted. No, these these teams always worry me, actually, sometimes more than the teams that are kind of set in mid-table or pushing for playoffs because the teams that these teams, sometimes they lose hope and they play without fear. And that actually works counter. And you know, they try new things and sometimes it comes off. So they have to be really concentrated. That, you know, that when you come across a team that's, that's playing, you know, so low they always can have the ability to perform, and turn it on. So definitely, time to keep concentrated. And like, I said, use the, the confidence that they have from securing a playoff spot and then the great season that they're having. Let's keep using that for, for this final for this final push, Now, coming up on the end here. Eight games remaining in the regular season. It'll be seven when we're back next week on the Inter Miami week. This show hopefully ten of the three points in the bag. And that eight point gap becomes wider at the top of the Eastern Conference. Battling for the Supporter Shield, hopefully getting to the ultimate goal, the MLS Cup on December 7th. And we hope that you are with us every step of the way. Make sure that you like and subscribe here on YouTube so you can be with us for every edition of the Inter Miami Week. The show.