WASHINGTON — Inter Miami had been an existing, competing soccer team for all of eight days, yet it was already well-versed in the sport’s penchant for cruelty. Absent a club motto, owner David Beckham might want to consider former manager Alex Ferguson’s immortal exclamation, “Football, bloody hell!” as a placeholder.
There were no scheduling favors done for the expansion outfit. Its inaugural game was at 2019 Supporters' Shield winner Los Angeles FC. But while Inter was far from home, it was hardly in over its head. There were stretches where it played LAFC on level terms, and in goalkeeper Luis Robles’s opinion, expressed afterward to the Miami Herald, “We played well enough to earn a point.