It was far from perfect but Inter Miami started the season with a 2-0 victory over Real Salt Lake behind goals from Robert Taylor and Diego Gomez. Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez grabbed the assists during the match but there is room for improvement as it took a mistake from Zack MacMath for the first goal to go in but the second was a beautiful build-up play of threaded passes.
Real Salt Lake came prepared as shown by their creative set play defense on Messi leading to a block in the box by Justen Glad to stop Miami from going ahead 16 minutes in but they were too conservative in the first half of play. Giveaways from the Miami midfield led to missed chances in this game but against other teams in the league, Miami would've conceded multiple goals which will concern Tata Martino. The Herons struggled with pace and will have a quick turnaround playing the LA Galaxy on Sunday after Messi and Suarez completed 90 minutes of play.
For Salt Lake, it feels like an opportunity missed. They hung with Miami for most of the match but when it mattered, they weren't good enough. There are moral victories to take from that but those can only get you so far as the next time that Cristian Arango gets five chances in a match, one needs to go in the back of the net for them to take something from it.
With an xG of 1.75 to 0.77, Miami deserved to win this game but Messi and Suarez combined for 1.24 of that xG despite not scoring a goal between them. The duo took six shots but with most coming from outside the box, MacMath was well-equipped to stop them. Real Salt Lake sitting so deep in the first half meant that Miami weren't able to get in behind and Julian Gressel struggled to help unlock things from deep as the injured Benjamin Cremaschi was missed. This will improve as Miami gets further away from the preseason but Martino may have his team doing passing drills in the lead-up to facing the Galaxy.
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Tomas Aviles wasn't at his best but with five interceptions, his defensive growth is showing as Gressel's two errors leading to a shot in midfield gave the Miami defense more work to do than expected. All things considered, starting the season with a victory and a shutout is only a good thing but expectations are sky high for Miami and they'll have to blow teams off the pitch to meet them.