Road unbeaten streak ends in Miami, 2:0
May 22, 2022
The streak was going to end at some point... but we didn't expect it to end in such a morbid way. Metro started out sharply, but sleepwalked through the majority of the game, falling to a bad Miami team, 2:0. It's the teams first multiple-goal loss since exactly a year ago.
The biggest lineup change was Ryan Meara getting his first league start since 2020, as Carlos Coronel turned up ill. Gerhard Struber reverted to a 4-4-2, with Dylan Nealis coming in on the left. Lewis Morgan moved back to the midfield, and Cameron Harper returned to the bench. Patryk Klimala returned to the starting lineup at the expense of Tom Barlow.
Klimala had an excellent chance to open the scoring midway through the first on a two-man breakaway, but elected to shoot the ball instead of passing to a wide-open Cristian Casseres. Alas, the shot was saved. Minutes later, what looked liked a harmless shot from Ariel Lassiter (his father stole a TV once) took a slight deflection. Meara could not react fast enough, and just like that, Miami, with little to show up to that point, was up.
That Klimala waste turned out to be the team's only good chance of the entire game. Frankie Amaya did force a save from a shot outside the box midway through the second half, but that was neither here nor there. Even with Luquinhas coming in, Metro failed to generate anything on offense, and were lucky to keep the margin at one. Meara came up with two big saves, the last on a Miami breakaway that Dylan Nealis eventually cleared off the line.
The result became academic in the 88th, with the majority of the Metro team caught upfield. Miami converted into the empty net after Meara came out to stop an unmarked attacker, who laid it off for Robert Taylor.
Amazingly, this is the first Metro game of 2022 where the home team tasted victory. Let's just hope that Metro's own horrid home form ends soon. Enough of these streaks!
Lineup: Meara, Nealis, Long, Nealis, Edwards, Amaya, Yearwood, Casseres, Morgan, Fernandez, Klimala. Subs: Harper, Luquinhas, Pendant, Barlow, Clark.
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