Inter Miami CF earned a 3-1 victory over South Georgia Tormenta FC in the first-ever U.S. Open Cup match at DRV PNK Stadium, sending the team through to the Round of 16. Heineken Man of the Match Ariel Lassiter netted a brace to lead the team to victory, his first two goals for Inter Miami.
Lineup Notes
Inter Miami fielded a starting XI with seven changes from the team’s last match. Drake Callender started in goal; DeAndre Yedlin, Jairo Quinteros, Chris McVey, and Joevin Jones started in defense; Mo Adams, Indiana Vassilev, and Robert Taylor lined up in midfield; Ariel Lassiter and Emerson Rodríguez flanked starting striker Gonzalo Higuaín.
Higuaín marked his return to the starting XI after recovering from an injury, while Jones made his first start for Inter Miami since his 2021 injury. Callender, meanwhile, registered his second consecutive start for the First Team. Defender Harvey Neville appeared in a First Team matchday squad for the first time in his career on a short-term loan agreement from Inter Miami CF II.
Inter Miami controlled possession throughout the first half while Tormenta FC aimed to hit on the counter. Callender made a handful of standout saves to deny the visitors after a few of their transition opportunities, including a fantastic reaction save to deny a close-range header in the 10th minute.
Inter Miami, however, opened the scoring in the match just before halftime. In the 45th minute, Adams won the ball at midfield and played the ball forward to Higuaín for a quick counter. The Argentine then played a ball to Vassilev, who patiently waited for the overlapping run of Lassiter into the box, and the Costa Rican then powered a shot past the keeper for a 1-0 lead. The goal was Lassiter’s first for Inter Miami while the assist was Vassilev’s first of the season in just his second appearance.
After making a pair of substitutions at halftime, bringing on Robbie Robinson and Victor Ulloa for Higuaín and Rodríguez, Inter Miami instantly struck to double its lead at the start of the second half. Taylor won the ball high, playing it forward to Robinson, who curled a shot from the edge of the box inside the near post to make it 2-0 less than two minutes after coming on. The goal was Robinson’s second of 2022 across all competitions while the assist was Taylor’s first for Inter Miami.
In the 65th minute, however, Robinson was sent off along with a Tormenta defender, bringing both teams to ten men.
In the 83rd minute, Inter Miami extended its lead further; Vassilev played a through ball down the right wing for a quick transition opportunity and Lassiter beat his defender with pace. The winger then calmly hit a curling strike at goal that deflected off a defender, hit the bar and crossed the line to make it 3-1. The goal gave Lassiter his brace and Vassilev his second assist.
Following the goal, Inter Miami made another pair of substitutions, bringing on Noah Allen and Neville for Yedlin and Jones. The appearance marked Neville’s first for the First Team.
South Georgia scored a goal of its own before the match was over through a Kazaiah Sterling strike in the 88th minute, but the match finished 3-1.
Heineken Man of the Match
Ariel Lassiter was voted Heineken Man of the Match after bagging a brace to guide the hosts to victory.
“We are in the next round, that’s all that matters. We want to be challenging for this competition. Everyone know the levels need to be better,” said head coach Phil Neville.
Next Match
The result will send Inter Miami through to the Round of 16 of the U.S. Open Cup, with the draw for the round set to take place this Thursday, May 12. Next Inter Miami will return to action this Saturday at 8 p.m. ET when it hosts D.C. United at DRV PNK Stadium.
Individual match tickets for each remaining regular season home match on the Inter Miami CF schedule are available visiting https://www.intermiamicf.com/tickets/single. Fans can also call 305-428-0611 to learn more.
The Boston Celtics fell to the Miami Heat in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Heat big man Bam Adebayo may have added insult to injury after Tuesday night’s showdown.
Adebayo’s postgame press conference seemed innocent on the surface, but there’s a chance he threw some shade the Celtics’ way. Asked about Miami’s dominant third quarter, he made some familiar comments that aren’t sitting well with C’s fans.
“I feel like our energy shifted,” Adebayo said. “That was the biggest key. Our energy shifted. We started getting stops on defense and running, getting in transition and the crowd got into it.”
Why is that quote such a big deal, you ask? Well, it could be a coincidence, but it sure seems Adebayo is mocking Celtics star Jaylen Brown‘s famous “the energy is about to shift” tweet from earlier in the season. The tweet has been referenced as the turning point in the Celtics’ 2021-22 season, and Boston has since turned it into a mantra.
Even if Adebayo meant nothing by it, you can bet the Celtics will use his quote as bulletin-board material going forward. They’ll take all the extra motivation they can get following their brutal 118-107 loss in Game 1.
Adebayo had 10 points, four rebounds and four blocks on Tuesday night. Brown finished with 24 points (7-17 FG) and 10 boards.
The Celtics will hope the energy shifts back in their favor for Game 2, which is set for 8:30 p.m. ET Thursday at FTX Arena. Coverage begins at 7:30 p.m. with Celtics Pregame Live right here on NBC Sports Boston
Don Cherry, right, doesn’t think his relationship with Ron MacLean can be repaired. (Photo by Kevin Light/NHLI via Getty Images)
Don’t expect a reunion of Coach’s Corner anytime soon.
In a short video tweeted out by the Toronto Sun’s Joe Warmington, disgraced former host Don Cherry declared the friendship between him and his co-host Ron MacLean over and done with and said he can no longer envision any healing of wounds.
“No, I don’t think we’ll ever be friends again,” Cherry said. “We can’t be friends again. It’s too bad because we were on the air, and we used to have fun – and I mean, it was so fun. Coach’s Corner was fun.”
The longstanding intermission show on Hockey Night in Canada ended in 2019 when the then-85-year-old Cherry went on a racist rant, targeting Canadian immigrants for not wearing the red poppy on Remembrance Day.
After being fired, Cherry did not apologize for his remarks, and viewed his termination as a form of censorship.
“I have just learned I’ve been fired by Sportsnet for comments made on Coach’s Corner Nov. 9,” Cherry said. “No problem. …I know what I said and I meant it. Everybody in Canada should wear a poppy to honour our fallen soldiers. …To keep my job, I cannot be turned into a tamed robot.”
MacLean and Cherry began hosting the segment that aired during the first intermission of the first game every Saturday night on CBC – and later on Sportsnet – in 1986. The comment that earned Cherry unemployment was not the first hateful thing he said on air. He has an extensive list of controversial statements targeting the Indigenous community, women, climate change, and also made xenophobic remarks about European hockey players.
Shortly after his partner’s firing, MacLean insisted that he still did not believe Cherry was racist and apologized for naming him in a post-termination statement that was broadcasted.
“What I know is that we made the mistake … I mean, no,” he said in November 2019. “Don, I think, has started to come around … he knows we projected an idea, an attitude or a behaviour on someone. He knows, I feel like in what I’ve listened to, he’s trying now to admit to that.
“If I have one regret, it’s that when I apologized on the Sunday night, I used Don’s name and, if I am sitting at home watching it, that would hurt me. That might have created some resolve in Don not to apologize.”
MacLean still regularly hosts intermission segments on Sportsnet’s NHL broadcasts.
The NFL schedule can’t please everyone all the time. One team, the New York Giants, and their co-owner, John Mara, are particularly upset about how 2022 will play out.
The Giants will be home to the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football. The game is on Sept. 26, which coincides with the second night of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah.
The Giants requested the NFL avoid scheduling their Week 3 game this season late on Sunday or Monday night. The contest with the Cowboys means Jewish fans observing the holiday will not be able to attend.
“I am well aware of that and not happy about it,” John Mara, the Giants co-owner, told The New York Post on Tuesday. “I made my feelings known to the league as soon as I saw the schedule. We have always requested the league take the Jewish High Holy Days into consideration when formulating our schedule. Not sure why it happened this year.”
A league exec, SVP of broadcasting Howard Katz, said Mara did make the request.
“We are never able to accommodate every request,” said Katz, who heads up the panel that puts the schedule together.
“Mr. Mara absolutely this year and every year when the Jewish holidays fall on football days, he always asks to avoid the Jewish holidays. He certainly did. In this particular case, we were not able to accommodate that request.”
The Jets, who share MetLife Stadium with the Giants, put in a similar request and the league obliged by having them play the Cincinnati Bengals at home with a 1 o’clock kickoff.
The game will be over by sundown when Rosh Hashanah begins.
Katz thinks the situation was unavoidable.
“But this is on me, this is not on John Mara. There are flaws in every schedule, we’ve never seen a perfect schedule,” he told The Post. “This was a flaw. We were gonna play a Monday night game so Jewish fans somewhere were going to be conflicted and have to make decisions on whether or not to attend the game or watch the game or not. It turned out that it was really unfortunate that it happened in New York. But it was going to happen somewhere.”