Inter Miami-Chicago Fire Clash Rescheduled for September
The Chicago Fire’s away match against Inter Miami has been rescheduled to September 30th, the clubs announced this morning. Miami advanced to the semifinals of Leagues Cup with a 2-1 win over Tigres last night and, as such, must recalibrate their schedule once again.
The match at Chase Field in Fort Lauderdale had originally been scheduled for Saturday, August 30th. Miami are now certain to play a Leagues Cup match against either the L.A. Galaxy or Seattle Sounders on August 31st, which would make their game against the Fire a day prior impossible.
Typically, make-up matches in MLS are squeezed in during the international breaks, and with a pair of them coming up in September and October before the end of the regular season, that would have seemed like the logical time to play this game. However, the Fire are already scheduled to play the New England Revolution during the September window, and Miami’s make-up game against Atlanta United from the Club World Cup is currently set for October 11th.
Had the Chicago-Miami game been moved to an international window, it is almost certain that Lionel Messi — MLS and world soccer’s biggest star — would not feature. Although Argentina already clinched World Cup qualification in March, the 38-year-old still maintains a perfect attendance card for his national team when healthy. In addition to Messi, Rodrigo de Paul (Argentina), Telasco Segovia (Venezuela), Fafa Picault (Haïti), Benjamín Cremaschi (USA U-20), Santi Morales (USA U-18), and Noah Allen (Greece U-21) are players from Miami who will likely be called up during the next windows.
The September 30th date throws a wrench in what had otherwise been a fairly generous final stretch of the Fire’s schedule. The Tuesday game against Miami falls in the mid-week interval between two home matches, meaning what otherwise what have been a calm, preparatory week before facing Toronto FC on October 4th is now one of the most action-packed 7-day stretches of the year.
