Inter Miami head coach Javier Mascherano insists the team must shift focus to the MLS regular season in order to move on from the disappointment of being eliminated from the Concacaf Champions Cup.
Miami drew 0-0 against Nashville SC in the first leg of the Concacaf Champions Cup round of 16, before concluding the series with a 1-1 tie at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The Concacaf tournament implements the use of away goals as the first tiebreaker of a level aggregate score, therefore eliminating Inter Miami from the competition.
“Well, what happened is in the past; we can’t change it now, and there is no point in dwelling on it. Clearly, we are still in the process of coming to terms with, and processing, the disappointment caused by our elimination,” Mascherano said on Saturday.
“That’s football; sometimes these things happen. However, I believe it is up to us to prove that what occurred the other day was merely an accident. The best way to demonstrate that is to now shift our focus entirely to the league.”
Despite the early elimination from the Concacaf Champions Cup, Mascherano emphasized the team has not seen a particularly bad start to the season with a 2W-3D-1L record.
“The only way to move forward is to maintain that belief in our process, keep working hard, strive to improve in every aspect and take full responsibility for our actions; I, first and foremost,” Mascherano said.
“There isn’t much else to add … What we can change now is the dynamic moving forward. It’s a bit strange, really: we are talking about the start of a season where we’ve lost just one match, drawn three, and won two. It’s not a bad start, certainly not a disaster, but, well, at a club with expectations as high as this one’s, everything tends to look a lot worse than it actually is.”
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Inter Miami will now return to the field on Sunday afternoon when facing New York City FC at Yankee Stadium.
Miami will have to do without midfielder Rodrigo De Paul for the game, however. The Argentina international has a muscle contusion in his left leg following a knock suffered against Nashville and will be held out of the game as a precaution, a team source told ESPN.
The team is also set to be without defenders Maxi Falcon and Sergio Reguilón, after both players suffered injuries during the Concacaf Champions Cup series.
