Inter Miami won Leagues Cup, but Nashville SC didn't make it easy for them
Unlike those teams, Nashville maintained a savvy defensive balance throughout the match. Playing out of a 4-4-2 shape, they pressured the opposing center backs and put numbers around Busquets.
Once their opponents played backwards after not finding Busquets’ feet, everyone bumped forward for Nashville. Surridge and Mukhtar left Busquets to press Miami’s two center backs, leaving the Spaniard in the care of defensive midfielders Dax McCarty and Anibal Godoy. Early in the match, Busquets grew tired of dealing with all of the congestion in the middle of the field and started dropping into the backline, either between the center backs or to the right of Kamal Miller and Serhiy Kryvtsov. That change in positioning helped Busquets wrack up plenty of touches , but many of them weren’t as dangerous removed from the heart of midfield.
That step-and-check routine happened seemingly every few seconds for both Godoy and McCarty against Inter Miami, and for a simple reason: the defensive midfield pair had to keep track of Messi. Together, the two MLS veterans did an impressive job of shadowing Messi and denying easy passes into the Argentine legend.
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