By Jon Arnold
Rodrigo De Paul did not have time to train with his new Inter Miami teammates, but already he was making his Leagues Cup debut. He hardly had time to gel with his teammates after that 2-1 win over Atlas but again was on the field for a full 90, assisting both goals and converting the opening penalty in a shootout victory against Necaxa. He finally got a ‘rest’ after scoring and going 89 minutes against Pumas, a 3-1 triumph that put Inter Miami into the Leagues Cup quarterfinals.
As De Paul left the field for the one minute of Leagues Cup action he wouldn’t play, Inter Miami manager Javier Mascherano had a word with the midfielder, later saying that he,“thanked Rodrigo for the effort. Three matches in seven days. Even beyond the performances, the willingness, the energy.”
“You have to understand things can go better or worse, but the willingness he came in with after not even having a preseason, coming in from vacation and putting on the shirt, playing like he does and in a way that’s contagious to the rest of the group is a great thing.”
The prospect of what De Paul can do with a little time off and more training sessions alongside his new Inter Miami teammates may worry Tigres manager Guido Pizarro as he prepares for the teams’ Leagues Cup quarterfinal. Except Pizarro has an Argentine Iron Man of his own, one who De Paul knows better than most of his new teammates.
Like De Paul, Angel Correa took part in the Club World Cup with Atletico Madrid before making a move to North America. Correa played in a pair of Liga MX matches with Tigres before beginning Leagues Cup, but it was in that tournament that his rapid adaptation showed.
Correa scored twice in a 4-1 win over the Houston Dynamo, then added another pair of goals in a 2-1 win over San Diego FC and went the full 90 minutes in a 2-1 loss to LAFC that closed out the group stage for Tigres. Correa scored days later in Tigres’ 7-0 Liga MX victory over Puebla, a fellow Leagues Cup quarterfinalist.
“We’re very lucky to have Angel, with the quality he has, in the team,” Pizarro said after the victory over the Dynamo. “He’s a guy who is really good and showed up humble, ready to add to the group, made himself available. I think we’re fortunate to have him and hopefully we can keep enjoying him.”
The indications already are that Tigres will enjoy having Correa in the team, with the 30-year-old not only scoring goals but opening up space for teammates and taking some of the attacking pressure off aging veteran Andre-Pierre Gignac.
While De Paul and Correa have put in a significant amount of Leagues Cup minutes and are set to add more to the total in the quarterfinal, fans will be watching to see if the star of their World Cup winning team in 2022 also is all to take the field. Lionel Messi took a knock in Miami’s second Leagues Cup match and missed the next two contests but is back in training. Plenty of fans in South Florida are hoping he’ll be able to add to the party.
Mascherano, too, will hope to have Messi on the field in part to counteract what Correa is doing with Tigres. Even if he’s unable to deliver his usual brilliant performance, however, he knows he has another player he can rely on not just for spectacular moments but for consistent contributions and a healthy dose of playing time.
