The first round of the MLS Cup Playoffs begins on Friday night when two sides who will have their eyes on representing the Eastern Conference in the MLS Cup Final next month meet at Chase Stadium as Inter Miami host Nashville SC.
The entire MLS Cup Playoffs series will be shown live and in full on the MLS Season Pass on Apple TV with the build-up to this one beginning at 12.30am ahead of the 1am kick off UK time. The bookmaker live stream will also show just the game.
Inter Miami
The current MLS Cup favourites Inter Miami will be looking to draw first blood in this best of three series. They go into the series knowing that when their involvement in it finishes that the career of Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba will come to a close and that might act as motivation for a franchise which will know it has been put together to win big trophies. This is a campaign that has seen them reach the Leagues Cup final, compete in the Club World Cup but is yet to deliver silverware. They need to go all the way here.
When it comes to the attacking part of the game you would think that Miami have got everything covered and it would be a surprise if they don’t find the back of the net in this match. The acid question over them though is whether they can keep goals out of their own net. That might not be quite so key in a best of three until we get to the deciding game, should we get there, but you sense it will be what decides whether Miami go all the way or come up short like last season.
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Nashville SC
This has very much been a better campaign for Nashville SC and given that they weren’t involved in the Club World Cup or the Leagues Cup, there is a case to be made that the visitors are the fresher of the two sides here. They were contenders for the Supporters’ Shield for much of the season and while they faded towards the end of the regular campaign, they have shown in individual matches that they can deliver the goods and the one thing we know about them is that they have star quality.
It will be interesting to see the Nashville approach here. There is the chance for them to approach this tie with freedom knowing that they have game two back at GEODIS Park should they come up short here. There is also the case that they look to keep things tight and have an eye on penalties with the aim of coming out on top. You would imagine they will go down the former route as they haven’t come this far to fade away tamely now.
Betting
When this tie was confirmed I fully expected it to be loaded with goals. We saw the evidence of why last weekend when the two met in Nashville on Decision Day in a clash which ended 5-2 to Miami. I’m not for one minute suggesting that we will see seven goals in the game but I do think that over 3.5 is the way to go about this game. The last four matches that Inter Miami have been involved in have had at least four goals while three of the last four Nashville games have covered this line too.
We have seen all season how you can exploit this Miami defence and it might be at its most vulnerable here because surely they will push even more to win this match and try to get this tie done in straight games to get the week off before the final three rounds of the competition. There is nothing to stop this from being end-to-end. We’ve just seen two knockout matches have four goals in them and with no do or die pressure on this one I expect the goals to flow here too. I’ll go over 3.5 goals.
Tips
Back Over 3.5 goals for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with BetVictor
