San Jose Earthquakes - Inter Miami CF (Wednesday, 5/14) pre/in/postgame thread [R]

I watched the 7-minute mlssoccer highlights. You can hear it clearly at one point.

 

Jordi Alba too... was worse from him during the game. I chalk it up to players that care a lot and are ultra competitive (read that a good thing).

 

He is generally not all that much of a pissy whiny player. I’ve seen much worse. Suarez is much worse. Messi doesn’t normally dive or whine too much about no calls. So it was a little out of character. I think the frustration of not winning again is building up a bit with these guys.

 

All in all the game was fun - a great experience. We got to see possibly the GOAT play a full game in our little stadium, the Quakes gave a good account of themselves and it was entertaining. It’s like Lew Wolff used to say, “If I said I had a cure for cancer some people would be against it”.

We'd all like every Bay Area soccer fan to be a Quakes fan, but we'd also like to live in a world with no wars, and where everyone who wants a pony gets a pony. So it is what it is.

 

Lol Messi is the best player in the entire history of the sport, the most popular sport in the world, and is ridiculously humble, way more humble than he has any right to be... "maturity" he was mature even when he was like 17 making his professional debut. But you don't get to be the best at anything without a high level of competitiveness.

.

 

Back to the Quakes, isn't it great that a local kid named Beau Leroux , who was born and raised in San Jose, attended Santa Teresa High School and who played for the San Jose State Spartans scored a screamer and Leo Messi went scoreless?

I think this is great for the team and other aspiring local players as well.

 

I totally agree with this. In the hundreds of times I watched him with Barcelona, I can't think of one time when I thought he demonstrated an excessive ego--or any ego at all. That always surprised me.

 

Not only that--he didn't even play for an "elite" youth club.

 

Messi's "immaturity" when he was a kid at Barcelona was that he almost seemed embarrassed by the attention when he scored an amazing goal and his teammates swarmed him.

 

To be fair, that would do it for just about anyone.

 

As entertaining as a multi-goal draw, both SJ and Miami didn't have the sturdiest defense and there were defensive mistakes to pound on.

We are still prone to the runners behind our defenders on two sides and also not tracking the runs into the box. The goals scored by Miami except the first one were very similar to those we gave up to SKC. That is more than our defenders but more like the midfield and the wingers can't trail behind.

 

There was an "MLS After Dark" show or something like that last night with Dax, Bradley Wright-Phillips, and Sasha, and they were poking fun at both teams' lack of competent defense, or the lack of any kind of defensive organization or structure. That may be a little harsh. We were playing against some pretty good players. Part of it was them making great plays, though their 1st goal was clearly very bad defense (as was our 1st goal against them).

 

You can see as Messi is walking away from the refs and shaking hands with Espinoza, he turns back and sees the ref giving him a yellow card, which causes him to turn around and head back over there to get his money's worth until Bruce finally ushers him away.

Lionel Messi had an extended, heated discussion with referees last night.

Seemed on the verge of being sent off... until San Jose manager Bruce Arena stepped in to diffuse and walked Messi away.

Arena: "I really wanted to make sure he wasn't going to get a red card." pic.twitter.com/AiZpfoHmQG

— Tom Bogert (@tombogert) May 15, 2025

 

The stars from Matchday 13. ⭐️

📝: https://t.co/ijUfYIL6Rn pic.twitter.com/RqX1NcBDYf

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) May 15, 2025

 

Unless you count the Santa Cruz Breakers.

 

For those who had tickets and didn't go...You made a mistake...Entertaining, exciting, and emotional...A better game hasn't been played in Pay Pal. I'm both a Quakes and Messi fan. Yes, it was frustrating to here the Messi cheers and see the fans only in attendance for him, but overall, it added to the environment. Props to the Faultline and Ultra, along with the fans who boo'ed (at least in our section).

From a soccer perspective, both teams defended poorly and were sloppy at times. Great goals from Leroux and Harkes (who had his best game as a Quake). Arango going off with the hamstring injury and Bruce mistakenly putting in Pelligrino didn't help.

Overall, I was pleased with the Quakes. Leroux and Harkes as I mentioned, but also Rooney and Munie.

However, I was frustrated with Bouda. He had a poor game and was lazing getting back onside which led to a goal being called back. Rodrigues was ball watching on the third goal. Daniel should have come out on the first goal on the lofted cross and his distribution was poor (kept getting caught in the wind).

In the end, Messi put in a good effort, almost scored, and showed why he has been one of the best players to every play the game. As I did seeing Pele at Spartan Stadium many years ago, I feel fortunate to see him play in person.

Proud of the Quakes and I expect that they will learn from the game.

 

If you’re upset with Messi getting cheered by fans in San Jose, you should hear the reception Steph Curry gets on the road (MVP chants).

 

- Sell your season tickets to the Messi game for 20x face value to people who want to see Messi
- Be shocked and outraged when those at the game are cheering for Messi in your team's stadium

 

I guess you don't want to say how much you got for yours, but was it worth it?

I don't think PPP has hosted such a great game since that WCQ (vs Honduras) a number of years ago.

 

Unless you really needed the cash, I agree it was a mistake to have foregone this game. It was epic, and the fact that the crowd was at capacity and seemed fairly evenly divided in allegiance added to the enjoyment.

 

Took my 6-year old son to the game yesterday (had to buy a season ticket for him this for the rest of this season as well) as he's been all Quakes since I took him to his first game last year against St. Louis. He stood all game long as he was fascinated to see a packed stadium for the first time. He watches quite a lot of highlights of Messi so he's been asking if we could go to the game since the schedule came out but I told him that tickets would probably be too expensive so we would watch at home. Well, I ended up surprising him with a season ticket yesterday after school and will never forget the joy in his eyes.

However, he's all Quakes as I mentioned earlier and it was never as apparent as last night when the crowd, at one point, started chanting "Messi Messi" and my son started booing and chanting "Earthquakes"...if nothing else, the Quakes have definitely gained one fan this season and I hope that last night has been able to create a few more.

 

Yes, nothing against Messi either, and acknowledge he is probably the GOAT, but, it was like a weird religious cult showed up at our stadium to see their Messi-ah.