Both New York City and Inter Miami debuted with a new manager in a roller coaster of a game that had everything a neutral could wish for, and it ended in a very intense draw.
However, after their opening week in MLS, they still had many questions to answer.

Photo via newyorkcityfc.com

Goalscorers:

Inter Miami CF Goals: Avíles 5’, Segovia 90+10′

New York City FC Goals: Ilenič 26’, Martínez 55′

The Boys in Blue went to Miami as one of the few teams that still had not lost against Messi & Co. and intending to continue growing after a very mixed last season with very high and very low points.
On the other hand, Inter Miami is ready to prove that they are the best team in the league once again. They demonstrated this regularly last season, winning the Supporters’ Shield, but failed their first test in the playoffs.
The game started as expected: Miami had a very fast tempo, with Messi carrying most of the attack in the center areas.
Unfortunately, there was an early substitution. However, due to the circumstances, I think subbing in Taylor for the injured Fafá Picault turned out to be great for Inter Miami. The team was too centralized at the beginning, but as a wide player, Taylor gave more options in the attack and forced New York to put more attention on their left side.
NYC struggles a lot defending set pieces, and by the looks of it, it seems at least it will remain an issue for the following games. Short corners have become the norm in football; they can be dangerous when used effectively. However, the first goal is more than just being surprised in set pieces. NYCFC made it look easier than it should, as not a single player pressured or attempted to block the pass from either Messi or Jordi Alba, and when Messi is in the penalty box, it is game over.
Avíles scores one of the easiest goals of his career.

The goal negatively affected City, who felt the magnitude of the game. They looked shocked momentarily and became erratic and discoordinated with their pressure, always looking for shadows when Miami connected more than two passes. They look dis Intern Miami looked sharp for those first twenty minutes; even long balls and second balls worked in their favor. They always found their references in attack and established themselves in the City’s half.
Oddly enough, whenever City finds themselves with the ball, they try long balls with Martinez running on the back of Miami’s defense. While credit where it is due, after all, the red card came from these types of passes. The reality is that, for the most part, Martinez lacks the first touch to develop these attacks. Sometimes, Pass was too strong, or Martinez did not control it well, and the defense caught him, etc. New York did not succeed in those situations and gave the ball away so quickly that Miami could continue dominating the game’s tempo.
However, Avíles’s red card changed the game completely.

But let’s first talk about the red card…
It was harsh. Was it even a foul? The tackle was clean, and I do not think Avíles’s grabbing was enough to justify calling it a foul. The tackle was in the penalty box, so if it is a foul, it should be a penalty. I have no idea why the VAR did not intervene in this situation.
In any case, Maxi used the free kick well, passing it to the unmarked Ilenič on the right, who shot past Oscar Ustari.

David Ruíz left for Ian Fray, which made it easy to defend Inter Miami that centralized their game (easy as that gets you defending Messi, of course).
With the extra man, NYCFC could control the game more, and both teams’ mentality shifted. Fray’s first intervention was losing the ball. Maxi recovered it and shot outside the box, forcing Urtera to make a good save. This led to a corner where Haak almost scored a header, but Ustari again made the save. It was another game that had just started.

The rest of the game until the second goal was all New York; they established themselves in Miami’s half, constantly recovering the ball in the final third and producing a handful of chances to score. The goal would come from a dreadful pass from Jordi Alba that was intercepted by Martinez, of all people, to score his first goal of the season.
Just as the first twenty minutes gave me the impression that I could see Inter Miami thrashing City, from twenty-five to sixty minutes, it gave me the impression that City could thrash Inter Miami. That is why I found City’s mentality for the rest of the game surprising; they stopped the high pressure and gave the ball away to Inter Miami.
Of course, it is easy to say to continue as they were doing at that point when you are sitting on your sofa watching the game.
Miami put more pressure on, and the change for both teams ended all tactics, opening the game, which became a ping-pong match, with both teams having chances and attacks in transition.
But I do not wish to be too hard on the team. The effort was there, and with the midfield at our disposal right now, it is hard to be mature enough and have the legs to control an away match as tricky as this one.

But Inter Miami just took control of the situation for no reason. They began to dictate the game’s tempo, finding space and reaching the final third very easily.

Neither Haak nor Parks are the players you could give the ball to and hide to give some fresh air to the team, and Maxi does not have the fuel to do it at 90 minutes. I think Ojeda and Wolf can be great projects and shine this season, but they were somewhat disappointing in this game, especially in Wolf’s case. You would expect more character from him, to ask for the ball more.
Nothing can be said about the substitutions; it was a coral performance trying to defend the result. However, Pascal Jansen quickly took off Tanasijevic in a heated moment where a second yellow card before even the first half would have been disastrous.
The last twenty minutes… were another game yet again. Each time a team recovered the ball, it was a chance to score, but while Inter Miami got the opportunity to at least shoot, another problem I can see arising in the near future is how young City is.
They fought and deserved some applause, but how they stopped the high pressure and handled the counterattack was very poor; they looked almost scared to pass forward, which was frustrating at times. The feeling that I gather is that they did not want the ball near them whatsoever, and Inter Miami, especially Messi, has the ball. You know things will eventually happen. In the 99th minute, after a failed counterattack, Inter Miami recovers the ball and finds Messi Messi, who carried the ball and, while being surrounded by four players, saw the through pass to Segovia, which chip Matthew Freese and score in the last action of the match to level the score.
It was a frenetic match, and the draw was fair, but how the game develops can annoy NYCFC as they slip three points given the development.

What is next?

Messi & Co. stays in Miami and should secure its place in the next round in the CONCACAF Champions League after an away win against Sporting Kansas City.

NYCFC will again travel to Los Angeles to face LAFC. They will try to develop Pascal Jansen’s game plan for another away match against fearsome opposition.
The away matches were an evident weakness last season. The team always played as the passive force and played a mid-low block. For the first twenty minutes against Miami, it seemed that this would also be the case this season, but we will see.