MIAMI.- Former colleagues in Barcelona, Lionel Messi crosses paths again on Saturday with Alexis Sanchez in a key duel for the Inter Miamii, whose results crisis has just cost the Argentine coach his job Guillermo Hoyos.
On Thursday night, Miami announced the replacement of Hoyos by Cristian “Kily” Gonzáleza former player for the Argentine national team whose career as a coach is limited to his country’s league.
Hoyos, who continues to lead the team until the arrival of the former midfielder Valencia and Inter Milan, He kept his appointment with the press on Friday and expressed his full support for the club’s decision.
“When ‘Kily’ comes we will surely get together and talk and talk. We are fully available. We are people of the club,” said Hoyos, who served as Miami’s sports director until he came down to the bench in April after the resignation of Javier Mascherano.
“We have lived very happy moments, all this is not a drama. On the contrary, it is a possibility of improvement, evolution, growth and we must support it in everything,” he stressed.
González, 52, had been free since October after a brief and unfortunate stint in Platense. The Argentine will take the reins of the current champion of the MLS with a service record showing other stays in Central Rosary (2020-2022) and Union (2023-2025).
“Kily”, who was born in Rosary Like Messi, he will be the fourth helmsman that the great captain has had in the MLS, after the also Argentine Hoyos, Mascherano and Gerardo Martino.
I think that Messi “has an inference just like players of that personality and that greatness can have,” said Hoyos when asked about the influence of the “Ten” in the choice of González.
“I imagine that it must be in different places as well. When you are in Boca (Juniors), you consult (Leandro) Paredes, because he is an emblem in Boca and he really (has) a say and a support about what the continuity of a coach or the arrival of a coach is,” he explained.
Teammates and rivals
A few hours before being dismissed, Hoyos received a one-match suspension from MLS for his players’ continued delays in taking to the field after breaks.
The punishment will prevent him from sitting on the bench on Saturday during the visit of the CF Montreal from the Chilean Sánchez, a theoretically favorable appointment for Inter to begin to get out of its slump.
In its last five games, Miami has recorded four losses and a tie between the MLS and the Leagues Cupa tournament from which he was eliminated in the group stage after being a finalist last year.
In the league, Miami now has the leader of the Eastern Conference, Nashville10 points away with 13 games left until the end of the regular season.
CF Montreal, second to last in the East, should be an affordable opponent, but Sánchez’s presence could cause concern in a defense that has conceded 13 goals in the last five games.
The Chilean attacker, the latest old glory to join the MLS at 37 years old, has played just 39 minutes in his two appearances with the Canadian squad as a substitute, without yet making his debut as a scorer.
On Saturday he could make his first start against Messi, with whom he won six titles in their joint time at Barcelona between 2011 and 2014.
After sharing a locker room, these two legends of South American football faced each other in two consecutive finals of the America’s Cup in 2015 and 2016.
Sánchez’s Chilean team took both trophies in victories in the penalty shootout, a blow so painful for Messi that it led him to threaten to retire from the Argentine team.
At the club level, it is the Albiceleste star who has a favorable record of six victories in his seven meetings with Sánchez.
