FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Supporters Shield. The MLS single-season points record. Lionel Messi leads arguably the most talented team in the league’s history – all of which brings little comfort to Inter Miami CF after their shock exit in the first round of the Audi 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs.

Saturday’s 3-2 Game 3 loss at home to Atlanta United provided an unexpected and heartbreaking end to a season that began with the highest expectations, most notably the MLS Cup Presented by Audi win on December 7.

Instead, Miami finds itself on the receiving end of perhaps the biggest upset ever seen in MLS: a first-round crash against the Eastern Conference’s ninth-seeded team, which needed a Decision Day miracle to win the into the play-offs.

“If you think about the expectations we had for the play-offs, we clearly fell short,” head coach Gerardo Martino said after the match, shortly after saying this season cannot be considered a success for the club.

“They are sad, as they should be,” Tata responded when asked about the mood of his players in the dressing room. “As it should be when there are so many expectations and the team cannot meet them. In the last period of the year we had become accustomed to achieving our objectives, but we were not able to achieve the most important thing.”

Goalkeeper Drake Callender echoed Martino’s feelings of disappointment.

“It’s annoying, it hurts. We wanted to give more to the fans who supported us all year long. This will certainly stay with me,” says Callender.

“…I think it’s hard to find words for the group. “I think we all expected more of ourselves and we felt like this was a game we could have won, but we didn’t.”

Miami seemed to be heading in the right direction after Matías Rojas gave the hosts a seventeenth-minute lead. But Jamal Thiaré turned the game on its head for Atlanta just two minutes later with a two-minute brace (19′, 21′). Miami leveled the score through Messi’s header in the 65th minute, before Bartosz Slisz nodded in the eventual match winner in the 76th minute.

The decisive goal came when Tomás Avilés was on the field and his Miami teammates begged referee Lukasz Szpala to stop the game. Szpala allowed the action to continue and the Five Stripes took full advantage, much to Martino’s dismay.

“There was a very similar play in Game 2 in Atlanta where Fede (Redondo) was attacking and there was a player, I think it was (Jay) Fortune, who was on the court and we kicked the ball out of bounds,” Martino said. . “But that’s what we would do, that’s what we did.”

For Callender, one particular moment can’t explain Miami’s premature exit in the playoffs.

“You can look back and we’ve done all these things this year: Supporters’ Shield, points record. But at the end of the day, play-offs are a new landscape,” said the 27-year-old. “You have to be able to beat the team you are playing against.

“… The expectation is to win, and when that doesn’t happen, it really hurts.”

That pain was also palpable at Chase Stadium, where fans watched in stunned silence as Atlanta’s players celebrated after the final whistle.

“Nothing but gratitude and apologies for not being able to achieve the goals we all set out to achieve,” Martino said when asked if he had a message for the faithful in Miami. “Both them and us.”