For Inter Miami CF to emerge from their early-season doldrums, much of the immediate path forward means finding ways to solve the New England Revolution.
The South Florida-based side will face the 2021 Supporters’ Shield winners twice in April, starting with Saturday’s nationally-televised match at DRV PNK Stadium (3 pm ET | ESPN, ESPN Deportes).
Head coach Phil Neville’s rebuilt squad remains in search of their first win as Week 6 arrives, sitting bottom of the overall league table with one point through five matches and a negative-10 goal differential.
“They’re a brilliant group of players who so desperately want to do well and to succeed,” Neville said. “We’re all feeling the frustration, we’re all feeling the pain, we’re all feeling the anger in terms of the results and we want to put that right.”
With new faces interspersed throughout the starting XI, they’ve scored just once from open play and have two penalty-kick strikes from star striker Gonzalo Higuain, who earlier this week was the subject of a retirement saga involving his father’s quotes in the Argentine press.
Addressing those scoring woes, Neville is confident that “one goal will spark” a reversal in fortunes. Facing a New England squad that’s still without US men’s national team goalkeeper Matt Turner (foot injury) and has lost four matches in a row across all competitions, perhaps that moment is near.
“What we’ve tried to do in training, which I think is really important, is there’s still got to be an element of fun,” Neville said. “There’s still got to be an element of enjoyment in the work that we do, because that’s what football is all about, that’s what life is all about. That’s been really key to get the balance right.”
As noted above, the Revolution are going through an unexpected struggle-filled stretch that includes a Concacaf Champions League quarterfinal exit in mid-March to Liga MX’s Pumas UNAM. They’ll certainly be without DP striker Adam Buksa (red card) this weekend, with his DP frontrunning partner Gustavo Bou (upper-leg injury) listed as questionable on the injury report.
Before heading to Miami, Revolution head coach and sporting director Bruce Arena said they gifted wins to the New York Red Bulls and Real Salt Lake in recent weeks. Those results come in contrast to New England's recording-setting, 73-point season of 2021.
“It's a long season,” Arena said. “These seasons go every which way, very rarely do you have identical seasons back-to-back, so we were facing adversity at the start the season, but that's not the worst thing. I’d rather have that happen now than later.”
Carles Gil, the 2021 Landon Donovan MLS MVP is confident Miami can be the Revs’ starting point for an uptick in form. Last year, they notched a 5-0 victory in this fixture wherein the Spanish playmaker had two assists.
“They’re a team that had a different start to the season like us, so we know it will be difficult for them but it’ll also be difficult for us because they need a win,” Gil said. “We’ll try to get three points and start to win games.”
