Player Ratings From Inter Miami's Final Pre-Season Match vs. Newell's
+ Making sense of the roster situation.
photo credit: Inter Miami CF
Inter Miami has officially ended their long-discussed pre-season with a nostalgia-filled match against Messi’s boyhood club, Newell’s Old Boys.
In front of a packed crowd at DRV PNK Stadium, the Herons were visibly energized compared to previous matches.
That may have to do with the season opener kicking off in about a week, but I’d like to think they wanted to show some love to the home fans, haha.
But, in all seriousness, I think this game revealed how the men in pink will show up against Real Salt Lake next Wednesday.
It was intense, fluid, and attack-minded.
It’s evident that the 4-3-3 will likely be the formation Miami uses moving forward. The partnerships in attack, midfield, and defense in the first half showed promise, something that I’ll touch on later.
The Herons kicked it up a gear, and Miami fans should look forward to how the club will continue to build chemistry throughout the season.
Without further ado, here are the player ratings from Inter Miami’s final pre-season match vs. Newell’s Old Boys.
*I’ll rate every player on a scale of 1 to 10, with 5 being average. I'm basing this on mainly the first 45 minutes. For the substitutes, I’ll judge accordingly. *
Goalkeeping, Defense:
🧤 Drake Callender - 4: Had a bit of a howler tonight. Some questionable decisions with the ball and lapses of concentration.
🏎️ DeAndre Yedlin - 6: Was solid, and used his recovery pace well, but some shaky moments as the game went on.
🦌 Tomas Avilés - 6.5: Clearly the first-choice center-back on the right-hand side. Will work well with his fellow compatriot on the left.
🦁 Nicolas Freire - 7: Think he’ll be the defender Miami fans were clamoring for. Was calm, snuffed out any danger at the back. Just needs to work on fitness.
💨 Jordi Alba - 7.3: Did typical Jordi Alba things. Was active in attack and got back in defense well.
Midfield:
💈 David Ruiz - 6.3: Put on a full shift. Didn’t do anything glaringly wrong.
☀️ Yannick Bright - 7.5: Super impressed with Bright. While his ball progression will come, his mobility, defensive work rate, and ability to circulate the ball did just enough to convince me he should be on the roster.
🥨 Julian Gressel - 6: Another okay game from the German-American, think he’ll probably work best as a winger or a wing-back.
Attack:
🐐 Lionel Messi - 7.3: Had some moments of brilliance, just unfortunate not to finish.
🔫 Luis Suárez - 5: Largely ghosted throughout the game, not particularly his fault, didn’t get the touches needed.
✌️ Diego Gomez - 6: Got himself into good goal-scoring positions. Based on his pre-Olympic form, he’s certainly able to put it into the back of the net, just not this match, unfortunately.
Substitutes:
🐥 Noah Allen - 6: Did his best, and will probably drop down the pecking order once Freire is fit.
🪽 Robert Taylor - 7: Literally Houdini. Never leave this team, please.
💪 Shanyder Borgelin - 8: Hold-up play was excellent, scored, and was hustling out there. Very impressed by his work rate.
🛎️ Leonardo Campana - 6.3: Had some good runs and link-up play, unfortunate not to finish.
🦩 Lawson Sunderland - 4: Gave away the ball that led to the equalizer.
👖 Jean Mota - 6: Welcome back!
🛥️ Israel Boatwright - 5: Didn’t do much. Was substituted during the late stages.
⛵ Ryan Sailor - 3: Was far too slow to react to the Newell’s equalizer.
A quick note on… Miami’s cap situation
Before the game had even started, Globo reported that former Inter Miami captain Gregore will leave South Florida and return to Brazil to join Botafogo.
On February 14th, The Athletic dropped an article stating that obvious that the Herons would need to ship off a few players to be roster-compliant by February 21st.
Anyone who covers the team closely knew this from the beginning of the off-season. Releasing an article re-stating what we already knew was redundant and silly.
It got to the point where Todd Durbin, Major League Soccer’s EVP of Player Strategy and Relations, had to release a quote stating that the league is aware of Miami’s situation and that the club is on the right track to fixing it:
According to the 2023 MLS PA Salary guide, Gregore had a base salary of $725,000.00 and a guaranteed salary of $961,250.00.
That is a significant amount of money for Miami at the moment. Unfortunately, though the Brazilian is a fan favorite, his wages are incredibly difficult for Miami to keep on heading into the 2024 season.
However, per Tom Bogert, Gregore’s fee will be around $2.8 million, so Miami will be able to convert some of that into General Allocation Money.
I’ll keep you all updated when the deal officially gets confirmed, but that’s the nature of the business in MLS.
Still think that the initial article by The Athletic was ridiculously excessive, though! 🤷🏽♀️
Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment below! Let’s discuss it!
Thanks for the updates! Agree on Borgelin (I knew nothing about him so this performance was the nicest surprise), Taylor and Messi (always great).
Wondering if you had any additional insight into the latest developments with Redondo? I saw that Inter Miami had to readjust their transfer fee to be compliant with MLS rules (basically matching Farias’ transfer fee) and that Juniors was unhappy with this. I saw Gaston Edul posted that the sides are still negotiating and have a day to reach an agreement. I assume this means that if Inter Miami isn’t able to break up the $8 million fee in some other way to be compliant that Redondo can’t replace Farias and may have to be registered as a DP instead. Is that a fair assumption? And if so, how does this impact Inter Miami’s pathway to roster compliance? Do they need to transfer another player? I saw in the Athletic article that they’ve listed Robert Taylor as available and I’m low key terrified that we lose him.
Agree with Gabriel. Taylor has pace and I think that's the second corner Miami has scored on that's he's taken in the last few games. Gomez was a huge disappointment last year, and this year through one half he looks the same. I don't enjoy when Campana is on the pitch, he lacks speed and is not technical. I would rather see others come on like Borgelin.
As for the Athletic article, it's behind a pay wall so I didn't see it. But I do follow you, the Herald, and a bunch of the independents/podcast guys and it's been loosely mentioned but not harped on. Do they need to make more moves outside Gregore? If so what else? No one, that I have seen as provided an in depth analysis.