Inter Miami midfielder Sergio Busquets admitted the MLS club is not up to the level of competition that will be seen at the 2025 Club World Cup, but insisted the team will fight to advance out of the group stage regardless of the opponents.
“It’s clear that we are not at the level to compete at the Club World Cup, but we will try to compete in our group,” Busquets told DAZN. “Go game by game, fight and hopefully advance to the next round though it’ll be difficult.”
His statement comes after the Vancouver Whitecaps eliminated Inter Miami from the Concacaf Champions Cup in the semifinals, winning 5-1 on aggregate over two legs. The Herons first fell 2-0 at BC Place in Vancouver before suffering the final 3-1 defeat at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale.
Following the elimination, Inter Miami head coach Javier Mascherano emphasized the Whitecaps clearly proved to be the superior team on the field before insisting the Herons must look to improve in the future.
“Sometimes you have to accept that the opponent has the hierarchy and has surpassed us. They surpassed us,” Mascherano said.
“We need to improve, we have to look forward, we need to learn from this and the last week. Today the feeling is really, really bad. The last three games we’ve lost, we conceded a lot of goals that we didn’t in the past.”
Inter Miami must now prepare to face FC Porto, Al Ahly and Palmeiras in the Club World Cup Group A after being allotted the additional host country slot by FIFA when winning the 2024 MLS Supporters’ Shield.
The world’s biggest teams will be traveling to the United States to compete in the tournament, with the likes of Real Madrid, Manchester City and Bayern Munich participating alongside the Herons.
Despite Busquets’ declaration, Mascherano clarified the team is not yet looking ahead to the tournament and instead prioritizing MLS at the moment.
“We now have to keep focusing on MLS,” Mascherano said. “I don’t think ahead to the Club Cup because we are a month and a half away. Now it’s time to focus on MLS. we’ve been competing in two competitions for two months and a half and we did it well.”
Inter Miami will inaugurate the 32-team tournament when they face Al Ahly at Hard Rock Stadium on June 14.
