Tata Martino “working on what to do next” as Messi’s Inter Miami bow out

Inter Miami’s dreams of making it to the MLS playoffs came crashing to the ground as Saturday’s 0-1 defeat to Cincinnati leaves Messi and Co. out of the running. With two games remaining, Miami are second from bottom in the standings and seven points behinds DC United in ninth - the last playoff place.

Lionel Messi returned to Gerardo Martino’s team, but could do little to avoid Las Garzas’ 17th defeat of the regular season.

During his post-match press conference, Martino spoke about the captain’s return. Messi had missed the previous three games, and it showed, reasoned the coach. “To be honest, from what I saw of Messi, it was a lack of football. The injury’s fine, there is no problem. It’s understandable because he’s hardly played at all in recent weeks and maybe he lacks rhythm. That was the reason why he only played 32-33 minutes,” Martino explained.

“As for the game, I thought our first-half performance was the best I have seen in recent weeks,” he continued. “We were unable to capitalize on that dominance and it was a totally different story in the second half. We didn’t suffer that much but we were leaving too much space. We are much more solid in defence now, playing with five at the back rather than four. That’s fine when you aren’t chasing the game, but then we had to rejig the defence and take one player out to put another in attack and that was when we started to have more problems.

Martino reflects on Inter Miami’s season

In addition to this, Martino also spoke about the project in Fort Lauderdale: “As for the season, I sincerely hoped it would go exactly the opposite of how it has all turned out. That was my own expectation. I tried to strengthen the squad, give it shape, not place too much focus on the Leagues Cup, compete well in both of the Cup games and qualify for the playoffs. Exactly the opposite happened - which usually happens when a coach has something in mind. I envisaged it turning out differently,” he said.

Viewing the team’s campaign since he took the reins back in July, Martino added: “If you take into account how we started the season, and that of three possible tournaments, we have won one - that’s a very important achievement for us. The league has 28 teams, out of those Houston won (US Open Cup), we won (Leagues Cup) and whoever wins the tournament will be the third team to win a trophy. There are 25 teams that won’t have won anything. If we look at it from that point of view, we can feel satisfied.”

The coach applauded his team for their efforts: “The players showed great commitment and put in a lot of work so that we can confront what comes next. I know that we still have two games left to play (both against Charlotte), but now is the moment to work towards the future. I believe that the club made good decisions in the summer and I don’t think we have much more rebuilding to do in December and January. But we need to be just as precise and careful with our analysis of how we are going to face next season”.

Answer for AS USA Latino

Martino also responded to a question from Fernando Petrocelli, AS USA correspondent in Miami, about the highlight of the season: “We had our greatest moment of splendor right up until the international break. After that, we began to have problems due to injuries and the accumulation of games. Until that moment, I felt that we had a poorly trained idea, but a very clear one in the heads of the footballers”.

He concluded: “I think that the losses that we began to have, the modifications that we needed to make - so many variations in the team from one game to another - we had to rotate to take care of the players, but that affected the tactical idea a little and then on top of that came fatigue and injuries. The team went through the worst moment of the year in the last 20 days, or last month.”

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