By Tiffany Williams –
As the New England Revolution enter matchday 12 this Saturday, they still sit in first place in the Eastern Conference and are looking to extend their unbeaten streak in league play.
The Revolution will travel to DRV PNK Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for Saturday night’s match against Inter Miami CF, who sit in tenth place in the Eastern Conference.
Saturday night’s match will be the fifth meeting between the Revolution and Herons.
Miami lost their first six matches of the season, but snapped their losing streak, winning their last two against Columbus Crew and Atlanta United.
New England Goalkeeper Djordje Petrović, Saturday night will be looking to remain among the league leaders in saves and goals against average after stopping five shots last Saturday in a shutout victory at Toronto. Since his MLS debut on June 12, 2022, Petrović has recorded 12 shutouts.
Following Thursday’s training session, Sporting Director & Head Coach Bruce Arena and forward Bobby Wood met with the the media to talk about Saturday night’s match.
Whe asked what he expects against Inter Miami CF, Arena said “They are on a good run lately, winning their last two games after a difficult spell. They’ve got very good striker player with their number nines, [Josef] Martinez and [Leonardo Campana], their wide player, 22 [Nicolás Stefanellia], good player. And at home they play well. We expect it to be about 75 degrees at kickoff, which is a little different for us, so that’ll be a bit challenging as we enter the summer months, so it’ll be a challenging game, traveling down there, all of that. Every game in Major League Soccer is a difficult game and we expect this one to be a difficult one as well.”
When asked more specifically about what he’s seen from Inter Miami this year, Arena said “I think they are experiencing what almost every team in the league does. It’s early going. MLS is difficult in the opening weeks because our preseasons sometimes aren’t perfect and injuries come into effect, which they’ve had to deal with some difficult injuries, as have we, and then they had that losing streak. But you can see over the last two games, they’ve gotten positive results in Columbus and at home against the Atlanta and I think they’ve found the formula right now, which is working for their team to get results, and that’s good coaching as well as having good team spirit. So, I think they are positioning themselves to have a real positive run as they move towards the end of the first half of the regular season.”
When asked about Miami, Wood said “Honestly, we’re really focusing on ourselves, but I think Miami has shown a lot of ups and downs. I think they can be an extremely good team, but we’re going to just focus on ourselves and know that every game in this league is tough. We know it’s going to be an extremely tough game. It’s going to be hot and they’re going to be very well organized defensively. We’re going to need a lot of ball movement, a lot of movement off-ball, and not give up easy goals.”
Saturday night’s match can be heard on the radio on 98.5 The Sports, with Brad Feldman and Charlie Davies calling the action, and on 1260 AM Nossa Radio USA in Portuguese.
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