ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC is entering new territory.
Not so much that it’s never played a game at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, or even that the team is playing the best player in the world for the first time. City SC comes into its match with Lionel Messi and Inter Miami on Saturday (6:30 p.m., Season Pass on Apple TV) having lost three games in a row, something the club has never done in the regular season before. After successfully avoiding adversity until the very end last season, this season it has arrived as the calendar turns to June.
“I think we are kind of spoiled from last year,†midfielder Eduard Lowen said after the loss to Seattle last week. “Because last year we had an incredible season. And I know we don’t want to talk about last year, but it’s very easy to be a good team when you are winning a lot of games almost every week. And then everybody can laugh with each other and be good with each other. But character shows in tough times.â€
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City SC will need character and more against Inter Miami.
“It’s not easy,†midfielder Indiana Vassilev said. “Last year was, I don’t want to say a fairy tale, but it’s very easy to be a good teammate when everything’s going well. And yeah, we’re kind of on a tough stretch here. But I completely agree with what Coach has said. The wheels aren’t falling off. I still think we’re doing the right things. And yeah, it’s a little bit harder, but at the end of the day, you fight for the guys who are next to you, and you have that trust and you have that love for them.â€
“I think the team has faced different kinds of adversity and I don’t think we’re actually playing that bad,†said midfielder Chris Durkin. “We think we’ve gotten unlucky a couple times. We just haven’t capitalized on the right moments. But I know that we’re doing everything we can to straighten the ship back up. A lot of film, working hard in training and just having heart to heart conversations with everybody to really get things in the right direction. I’m happy with the level of focus and trying to get back to where it was. And I think that’s the most important thing, luck is not going to be created by itself. You got to earn it. So we’re trying to earn that right now.â€
Of course, all the training, all the camaraderie, all the trust may not help going against the league’s current leader in points, Inter Miami. Which brings up one of the reasons City SC players and coaches aren’t too gloomy: this was always going to be the toughest part of the schedule.
Two of the three losses have been to Los Angeles FC and Cincinnati, two of the best teams in the league, and now City SC gets Miami, which is probably the best. City SC was the better team against Seattle but couldn’t finish its chances and fell behind on a fluke deflection. The LAFC game was winnable too but turned on a missed penalty kick by Klauss.
“When it’s going your way these things are easy to do,†said City SC coach Bradley Carnell. “You can do them with closed eyes. When it’s not going your way, you start to think, you double think. ‘Should I step, should I not, should I cover, should I drop, should I whatever.’ So you go through multiple things, but you only have fractions of a second to make a decision. And sometimes when you have a run like we’re having, over three games now, you start now to think about these things. We’re trying to get the guys to think freely, calmly, and almost go two steps backwards to take three forwards. So that’s the kind of approach right now.â€
Now insert Messi into the equation, along with a team full of stars.
So far this season, City SC has gone up against some of the other top names in the league: Chicho Arango of Real Salt Lake, Denis Bouanga of Los Angeles FC, Lucho Acosta of Cincinnati. The results: a hat trick for Arango, two goals for Bouanga, a goal and two assists for Acosta.
Now they have to face Messi.
“We haven’t managed the star players on teams well enough this season,†Durkin said, “and we need to take more pride in that and it comes down to just the attitude that we come in with, playing with a chip on our shoulder.â€
“You give good players time and space,†Carnell said, “they can hurt you. And that’s why they get paid the top dollar, and if we let one principle slip, that’s how we get exposed and how we get punished.â€
Miami showed it was mortal Wednesday when its 10-game unbeaten streak was snapped by struggling Atlanta in a 3-1 loss. The word out of Miami camp is that despite going 90 minutes on Wednesday in hot, humid conditions, Miami’s big stars, Messi, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba and Luis Suarez are ready to go.
“Everyone is optimum to play,†assistant coach Javier Morales told reporters Friday. “We expect few rotations for the game against ºüÀêÊÓƵ, because we opted to rotate the squad for the game against the Vancouver Whitecaps last weekend.â€
So the challenge is there. City SC defender Tim Parker used one word to describe how City SC needs to play.
“Brave,†he said. “I think we still want to play the way we want to play. They may have some star power and some names, but we still have to attack the game as if they don’t. It’s just an away game for us in which we’re looking to maximize points.â€