Player Ratings From Inter Miami's Clinical CCC Night vs. Nashville

+ Post-game quotes from Tata Martino

Mar 14, 2024

photo credit: Inter Miami CF

Inter Miami continues their dream of winning the CONCACAF Champions Cup with a 5-3 aggregate win over Nashville SC, booking a ticket to the quarterfinals.

After drawing them in the first leg, the Herons knew that the return leg would be just as fiery.

The social media spat between Messi/IMCF supporters against Lukas MacNaughton after his questionable tackle on the World Cup winner added to the stakes.

However, it took Miami just 8 minutes to break the deadlock through Luis Suárez.

The Men in Pink only got better as the match continued, subsequently scoring in the 23rd and 64th minutes.

Miami will either play Mexican powerhouse Monterrey or fellow MLS side FC Cincinnati in the next round.

But, before we jump ahead to that match-up, here are Player Ratings from Miami’s win over Nashville.

*I’ll rate every player on a scale of 1 to 10, with 5 being average.*

Goalkeeping, Defense:

🧤 Drake Callender - 7: Had a few good stops and high claims to bring some tranquility to the backline.
🥨 Julian Gressel - 7.5: A great game from the 30-year-old. Kept a nice balance between defense and attack, wasn’t caught out of position, and had some nice passes into the final third.
🦌 Tomas Avilés - 7.9: Once again showing why he’s the most expensive center-back in MLS history. Snuffed out Nashville attack’s all while having enough pace to cover large amounts of ground.
🏋️ Serhiy Kryvtsov - 7.3: One of Kryvtsov’s better games. Didn’t make any glaring mistakes.
🐻 Nicolás Freire - 7.5: Like Kryvtsov, didn’t have any visible mistakes. Kept everything in front of him and did well to stymie Nashville’s front four.
💨 Jordi Alba - 8: At the age of 34, I’m still so impressed he’s able to make the runs he does as well as, essentially, become another creative outlet on the left flank for Miami.

Midfield:

🧮 Sergio Busquets - 7.9: Quickly developing a nice partnership with his mini-me in Redondo. Able to do what he does best when not forced to cover large amounts of ground.
✌️ Diego Gómez - 8.5: One of the best players on the pitch. His hustle, work rate, and incredible stamina is needed in a Miami midfield filled with cerebral creators.
🐞 Federico Redondo - 7.5: Slowly coming into his own at Inter Miami. The guy has crazy composure for being so young. Additionally, his ability to cover ground is a plus for an aging Busquets.

Attack:

🐐 Lionel Messi - 9: Though he came off early, still had a massive influence on the game. Tallied up a goal and an assist through 20 minutes.
🔫 Luis Suárez - 9.1: Every time he has a MOTM performance like this, I like to call attention to that tweet where I poked fun at people saying his knees are broken, haha.

Substitutes:

🪽 Robert Taylor - 8: Came on, scored a goal. Didn’t elaborate.
🐥 Noah Allen - 6.3: Did okay-ish. Was maybe a step too slow during the Nashville goal, but did well despite that.
💈 David Ruiz - 7: Showed grit and tenacity on the left side when the game needed closing out.
🛎️ Leonardo Campana - N/A: Didn’t play long enough for a rating.

Coaching:

🔢 Tata Martino - 8: The 3-5-2 worked well. Miami were aggressive, solid in midfield, and almost kept the clean sheet. A little slow with the substitutions, but all in all a well coached game from Martino.

Tata Martino’s post-game quotes:

On…..Messi’s knock:

Tata says Messi came off as a precaution. They didn't want to risk anything, so they decided to just sub him off.

On…..Diego Gomez:

"The confidence is which Diego came back [from international duty] is (great.)"

On…..the 3-5-2:

"Today the back three worked fine. We were aggressive in reducing the space from behind through the middle."

On…..the focusing on MLS:

"I don't want to eliminate Cincinnati before they play tomorrow. If we play Monterrey or Cincinnati, right now, there's no space to be thinking about who we play."
Says the team is pivoting focus to MLS right now.

On…..whether Messi will play this weekend:

Tata says Messi's availability for Saturday is TBD. They'll do some evaluations to see where he's at before deciding to play him.

Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment below! Let’s discuss it!