Luis Su\u00e1rez and Tadeo Allende scored second-half goals with a healthy Lionel Messi on the bench, and Inter Miami beat Jamaican club Cavalier FC 2-0 on Thursday night in the first leg of a CONCACAF Champions Cup group of 16 match.<\/p>\n
Messi sat out his second straight game. He didn\u2019t travel with Miami to Houston for a Major League Soccer match against the Dynamo on Sunday night, which Miami won 4-1.
\n\u201cFor us, we feel it when we don\u2019t have Leo,\u201d first-year Inter Miami coach Javier Mascherano said. \u201cI think any team in the world that doesn\u2019t have Leo will feel that.\u201d
\nAllende retrieved a pass from Sergio Busquets and beat Cavalier goalkeeper Vino Barclet from 12 yards out in the 61st minute, with his shot landing inside the left post.
\nSu\u00e1rez connected in the 83rd minute. He retrieved a ball deflected off Cavalier defender Shamar Watson\u2019s foot and blasted a shot from 20 yards.
\n\u201cWe played with fire and when you play with fire, you are likely to get burned,\u201d Mascherano said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t play with the rhythm we planned for in the first half. There was no intensity. In the second half, we attacked much better and dictated the game.\u201d
\nAn apparent goal by Cavalier forward Shaquille Stein late in the first half was overturned because of an offside infraction after a video review that lasted seven minutes.
\n\u201cOur fitness level dropped to start the second half, probably from the disappointment of not having the goal allowed,\u201d The Associated Press quoted Cavalier coach Rudolph Spied as saying.
\nThe second leg will be on March 13 in Kingston, Jamaica.
\nMascherano reiterated that Messi is not injured but has experienced some fatigue after playing three games in six days before the two-match absence. Messi, the eight-time Ballon d\u2019Or winner, participated in the two practices that preceded the match.
\nBut he was not in the lineup that was announced an hour beforehand. Messi watched from a private box.
\n\u201cNot having the best player is complicated but we have to take a step forward and learn to play without him,\u201d Mascherano said.
\nCavalier, which won the Jamaican Premier League title last season, advanced to this phase of the Champions Cup after winning the CONCACAF Caribbean Cup in December. The club remains scoreless in the Champions Cup after 2-0 and 4-0 losses against FC Cincinnati last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Luis Su\u00e1rez and Tadeo Allende scored second-half goals with a healthy Lionel Messi on the bench, and Inter Miami beat Jamaican club Cavalier FC 2-0 on Thursday night in the first leg of a CONCACAF Champions Cup group of 16 match. Messi sat out his second straight game. He didn\u2019t travel with Miami to Houston …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44227,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44225\/revisions\/44227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}