The recent 1-0 loss to fellow expansion side Nashville SC was a tough result to swallow for an Inter Miami team that believed it had turned a corner following their first-ever win which came in convincing fashion at home against Orlando City, one of the league’s best sides in 2020.
A 1W-6L-0D record thus far has Miami anchored to the bottom of the Eastern Conference, adding greater urgency to the Week 9 road trip to face Atlanta United on Wednesday night (7 pm ET | FS1 in US; MLS LIVE on DAZN in Canada).
“Surprised? Absolutely,” veteran midfielder Victor Ulloa said. “If somebody would’ve told you we’d have this record at this moment, I’d say ‘no.’
“I know I may sound naïve or dumb, but I feel like every game we’ve been in it,” Ulloa continued, pointing out how mistakes and lapses of concentration have cost them results. “We opened up in LA [vs. LAFC] and they’re probably the best team in the league and maybe in MLS history and we gave them a run for their money. I haven’t thought and I don’t think we’ve been out-competed in any of these matches.”
Atlanta, led by interim head coach Stephen Glass, are not exactly in top form at the moment. They are coming off their first-ever loss to rivals Orlando City on the weekend and they needed star forward Pity Martinez to rescue them in the match prior against Nashville SC. So Inter Miami see the road trip to Mercedes-Benz Stadium as a match for the taking.
“It’s a perfect opportunity,” Ulloa said. “We know they’re coming off a loss at home, so we know they’re going to have that pressure on their backs, especially being the home team. We have to take advantage of that, go in there knowing that we don’t have as much pressure as them and hopefully take advantage of that. … Atlanta has been a very good team these past few years and we have to take advantage that they’re in a bad moment and hopefully we come out of this on the right side.”
“We have high hopes for tomorrow’s match,” Miami manager Diego Alonso said. “We know we’re going to be facing a team that’s wounded. But we have hopes that we can have a great game and get the three points.”
Diego Alonso pushing his team from the sideline in their win vs. Orlando | Jasen Vinlove-USA Today Sports Images
With just six points separating Atlanta and Inter Miami in the standings and a rematch looming in Miami just one week later, the matches between the two teams may prove to be the perfect opportunity for Inter Miami to make a big push up the East standings and potentially catch a direct competitor for the postseason.
Ulloa shared Inter Miami’s strategy when they face Pity and his crew: “We know [Atlanta are] a team that likes to play out of the back, it’s a team that likes to keep the ball and take a lot of risks. So we’ve got to go in there and try to high press them and hopefully get the ball back in good spots where we can attack quickly at the goal.. If we’re able to maintain that high press and get the ball quickly, we’ll have a lot of opportunities to working on finishing and getting more goals.”
For anyone counting out Atlanta, Alonso pointed out just how different Atlanta looked when the likes of Jurgen Damm, Ezequiel Barco and Cubo Torres came into the match they lost to Orlando and “if they’re playing, Atlanta has more potential … Barco and Damm are players who can unbalance an opposing defense and can help Atlanta to be a more difficult rival.”
But Alonso continues to be upbeat about his team and the lessons they took from their last match in which they outshot Nashville 19-5, only to finish on the wrong end of a 1-0 result.
“For me the most important thing is that the team knows when it plays poorly and why it plays poorly,” Alonso said. “This is the hardest thing to achieve with a team: understanding why it wins and why it loses. When a team knows why they’ve won, you repeat it. When you know why you lost, you know what you’re doing wrong and it’s much easier to correct.”
“We have a great opportunity [on Wednesday] in order to turn the page,” Ulloa said. “We’re not too far behind. I think one or two positive results that we can get, and we can turn this thing around and make a run for the playoffs and make a run for the cup.”
