The inaugural Club World Cup starts on June 14, with its 32 teams split into eight groups of four in the opening phase.

As part of our guides to the sides that will feature in the tournament, Felipe Cardenas gives you the background on Inter Miami.

Who are they?

This is year five of Inter Miami’s existence as a professional football club. The Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based team has been both the laughing stock of MLS and the premier club of North America’s top flight. It has been a topsy-turvy start for David Beckham’s pet project. 

Inter Miami enters the Club World Cup with battered hopes and a bruised ego following a difficult start to the 2025 MLS season. Captain and global football icon Lionel Messi will lead an underperforming squad into the tournament that hopes to advance out of Group A, which includes Porto from Portugal, Brazil’s Palmeiras and Egyptian side Al Ahly.

A place in this first playing of the expanded Club World Cup is a dream come true for Miami’s owners, but will the tournament fulfil their wishes or turn into a nightmare experience? 

How good are they? 

Since Messi’s arrival in July 2023, Miami has tasted some competitive success while becoming a commercial behemoth in the U.S. The 2022 World Cup winner’s presence has helped Miami become one of the most valuable clubs in MLS, currently valued at $1.19billion (£878m), according to a May report by Sportico. Messi’s first full year saw Miami win the MLS Supporters’ Shield, the trophy that goes to the team which earns the most points in the regular season. 

In that 2024 season, under former manager Tata Martino, Miami also set a new league record for points earned (74) in a campaign that crowned Messi as the league MVP. The year ended on a sour note, however, when they were eliminated by Atlanta United in the first round of the MLS title playoffs. Martino abruptly resigned due to personal reasons and Miami hired Messi’s long-time friend and former Barcelona and Argentina team-mate Javier Mascherano as head coach. 

After a hot start to 2025, Mascherano’s side has struggled to play consistently well, and aside from an over-reliance on Messi, who turns 38 this month, the team is devoid of a tactical identity. 

How did they get here?

Funny you should ask.

FIFA’s convoluted qualification criteria handed Miami a ticket to the big dance. Miami didn’t win the MLS Cup final to be crowned its champions, and hasn’t come close to winning the Concacaf Champions Cup, either. But FIFA has always reserved one host slot for the Club World Cup, even before the competition was expanded to 32 teams from seven and moved from being an annual event to one staged every four years.

When Miami won that Supporters’ Shield at the close of last year’s regular season, FIFA president Gianni Infantino had the loophole he needed to invite Messi and company to this summer’s competition in the United States. 

“Miami loves football. The world loves football, and the world loves Miami,” Infantino said from Miami’s home pitch last October. “You’re the best team of the season in America,” Infantino added. “You can start telling your story to the world.” 

Miami will also open the tournament, against Al Ahly at 65,000-capacity Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens next Saturday night. If Infantino was dead-set on having Messi in this first edition of the new-look Club World Cup, he succeeded. How Miami fares in it is another story.

The side is short on depth and the ageing legs of Messi and his former Barcelona team-mates Luis Suarez (38), Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba (both 36) won’t be enough to make a deep run, even if Miami advances from the group stage. 

What’s their style of play?

Give the ball to Messi and hope he creates a moment of magic.

That sounds cynical, but unsurprisingly, everything goes through the Argentine No 10. And one can’t blame his team-mates, if we’re being honest. Messi remains highly effective around the penalty area and decisive when it matters most. He finished the 2024 MLS season with 21 goals and 17 assists (including the playoffs), but ran out of gas against Atlanta in the post-season. 

Miami wants to press high and force opponents to play narrowly. When it comes together, Miami can be formidable in transition. The problem is with the back line and overall defensive structure. Miami leaks goals and tends to play so open that a spell of good play is consistently undone by poor defending.

It wouldn’t be a shock to see Mascherano dial back the high press and play a more pragmatic style in this competition.

Tell us about the coach

Mascherano is in his first job as a professional head coach.

Before succeeding Martino in November, he had managed Argentina’s under-20 and under-23 men’s squads, and also coached Argentina’s team at the 2024 Olympics, losing to hosts France in the quarterfinals. That was considered a massive disappointment, which led to widespread criticism of Mascherano’s acumen as a manager. 

Inter Miami’s managing owner Jorge Mas and Mascherano at his unveiling (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)

Having played under both at Barcelona, Mascherano has spoken publicly about his appreciation of Pep Guardiola’s tactics and how Luis Enrique influenced him as both a player and a coach. Still, there is little evidence to suggest Mascherano’s philosophy will resemble that of an elite coach. His close relationship with Messi, Suarez, Busquets and Alba suggests he was given the job for reasons other than his resumé.

“People can have their opinion, and those opinions are valid, clearly,” he said in December. “But I’m convinced that I’m qualified to coach this team. I’m very excited to do so. Experience in football doesn’t always make sense.”

Who is their star player?

Less than three weeks from turning 38 years old, Messi doesn’t have the same burst off the dribble that saw him embarrass defenders throughout the pitch when he played for Barcelona. These days, he tends to position himself as close to the goal as possible, where he can create and finish plays without expending too much energy. 

But late-stage Messi is still a joy to watch, even if purists may want to hold onto memories of his dominant 20-year run as the world’s best player rather than see him carrying an MLS team. He still walks about the pitch and sometimes stands motionless as the game goes on around him. Today, Messi picks his moments more cautiously than ever. 

“Leo has turned into a complete player who plays all over the field,” Mascherano told The Athletic last year. “When you have a player like that, the most important thing is to give him the freedom to move where he believes the team needs him and for his team-mates to understand his movements.”

Messi has grown increasingly frustrated with Miami’s up-and-down form, though. Many of his young team-mates struggle to match his advanced football IQ, which has irritated this winner of 10 La Liga titles, three Champions Leagues, two Copas America and the most recent World Cup three years ago — more so when the team loses games. His patience is thinner, as well, with MLS referees taking the brunt of Messi’s anger.

This Club World Cup could be a breaking point.

And their rising star?

Venezuela international Telasco Segovia is Miami’s young player to watch. The 22-year-old attacking midfielder is a goal threat with a high ceiling. Segovia was signed this winter after spending two seasons in Portugal with Casa Pia. He has quickly become one of Miami’s key players and an on-field ally of Messi and striker Suarez. 

Telasco Segovia is one to watch at Inter Miami (Leonardo Fernandez/Getty Images)

Segovia is a versatile player, which allows him to roam the midfield and attacking areas and contribute both in possession and in transition. He tends to make the right decisions around the opponent’s penalty area and is not shy about taking his chances. There’s a maturity to him that stands out.

On a team of veteran superstars who have won nearly everything in football, Segovia’s self-confidence and clean technical play have been a boon for Miami. 

He’s a regular for Venezuela’s national team, but if he performs at a high level at the Club World Cup, the competition could be the showcase Segovia needs to reach his full potential.

Who are their biggest rivals?

In-state rivals Orlando City can be considered Miami’s rivals, but the truth is, every team Messi and company face plays with a knife between its teeth. Miami has become both a media darling and a hated club by rival MLS supporters. 

That’s a sign that things are going as planned in South Florida, though. With Messi and his mates, Miami has sold out huge NFL stadiums and other neutral venues. Messi fans have run onto the pitch to take a selfie with him. On the road, opposing teams’ supporters have congregated outside Miami’s team hotel, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Argentine superstar. 

All of that attention has turned Miami into an MLS villain, a nemesis that fans outside of Fort Lauderdale enjoy watching suffer. I don’t think Miami would have it any other way. “A lot of people are jealous of Inter Miami,” club managing owner Jorge Mas told FDP Radio in April.

Enough said.

Why should a neutral root for them?

Miami has plenty of detractors, but Messi boasts legions of fans worldwide. The team’s pink kit is seen across the globe these days, and Messi, even in the twilight of his career, still conjures emotions and fanfare usually reserved for a mega pop star.

Miami won’t be a favorite at this tournament. We’ve established that. But the presence of Messi will bring eyeballs to FIFA’s new baby. Neutrals will tune in to see if he still has any magic left in him. Romantics will watch in the hope he’ll turn back the clock to November and December of 2022, when he finally led Argentina to World Cup glory.

And that’s precisely what Infantino had in mind when he gave them that hosts’ spot.

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Kelsea Petersen)

It’s impossible to find two power-conference college football programs farther apart geographically than Miami and Washington.

They have faced each other only three times, but the Hurricanes and Huskies have a unique bond. Before they ever squared off, they split the 1991 national title, with 12-0 Miami crowned by the AP poll and 12-0 Washington getting the nod from the coaches poll.

Then, in 1994, Washington traveled to Miami as a 14-point underdog and snapped the Hurricanes’ NCAA-record 58-game home winning streak. The Huskies’ 38-20 win became known as “The Whammy in Miami.”

What no one could’ve imagined when No. 4 Miami visited No. 15 Washington in 2000 was the impact that game would have on both programs, particularly the Hurricanes, who were looking for revenge but maybe got something bigger from the showdown in Seattle.

Marques Tuiasosopo, Washington QB, 1997-2000: I don’t think either side liked sharing the national title. Then, they go to Miami and beat them and end their record home winning streak. From our side of things, we knew they still wanted to make amends for that, and they still had that chip on their shoulder from 1990. It was a big deal.

Larry Tripplett, Washington, DT, 1997-2001: I remember the speech (UW defensive line) coach (Randy) Hart gave before that game. I think it was the Thursday before the game. He talked about the history of Husky football and the tradition. He was coaching back when they had the Whammy in Miami and showed the video of that. I remember feeling like this game was much more than just a game, that it meant a lot for Husky history, that I wasn’t just playing for myself, I was playing for the guys who were in that Whammy in Miami and all the guys who ever wore the purple and gold.

Rick Neuheisel, Washington coach, 1999-2002: Miami was so star-studded. You needed to know where (safety) Ed Reed was at all times. Their corners were fabulous. Their receivers were Reggie Wayne and Santana Moss, and (Jeremy) Shockey was the tight end. Their third-string running back was Clinton Portis. James Jackson was the starter. They had Najeh Davenport, and (Willis) McGahee was the guy who didn’t get to play. They were phenomenal.

Brent Myers, Washington OL coach, 2000-02: They jumped off the film when we watched them, especially (linebacker) Dan Morgan.

Tuiasosopo: We knew it was gonna be tough, but we thought we were good too. I don’t think anyone knew who we were, though. We knew we had to put up a fight. We knew we were gonna have to scratch and claw and be more physical.

Tripplett: Our meeting room was in the tunnel, so when they were coming out pregame, they were barking and yelling and totally disrespectful. This was told to me, and I don’t know if it was actually true, but I’d heard that some of their players had urinated on the middle of our field. The amount of disrespect and swag that they came in there with was off the charts.

Tuiasosopo: They tried to intimidate us. They knew we liked to do a lot of barking. I remember in the pregame, walking down the tunnel, and a couple of their guys were walking up and they would just yelp, like a whupped dog. I just thought, OK, these guys don’t know what they’re walking into. They were making fun of us, and we didn’t like it. That kind of set our jaw a little bit. That pissed us off. We knew they didn’t respect us.

Tripplett: They were very arrogant, but they had every right to feel very confident. But I know this, that before that game, you could look in our guys’ eyes, Tui, Jeremiah Pharms, Pat Conniff — we all had this look like, no words needed to be said. We just knew what we were about to do. I felt that way. One of the beautiful things about football is the team aspect, and we all came together.

One other similarity between the two programs: They each had iconic home stadiums known for raucous atmospheres. Husky Stadium, with its overhanging roof on each side of the field, held the highest recorded decibel record for a college stadium for over 30 years. It was set in 1992 against Nebraska at 133.6, a record that stood until 2023 when Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium registered 137 dBs against Georgia. But to the players on the field on Sept. 9, 2000, Husky Stadium — or any other football stadium — never sounded any louder. And considering the Canes quarterback, Ken Dorsey, was making his first start on the road, that made a big difference.

Tripplett:  It was deafening. Dude, it was so crazy loud. I felt as if Miami was really shell-shocked as far as how loud it was and how aggressively we were playing.

Joaquin Gonzalez, Miami, offensive tackle, 1997-2001: It’s the loudest place I’ve ever played, college and pros. The two overhangs on either side of the stadium, it was just this bellowing and a resonating sound. If you look at the first part of the film, the offensive line was late off the ball. Bryant McKinnie and I were late off the ball quite a bit early on, even though we had practiced a silent count and all of that. It was hard to even get the play calling in from (QB Ken) Dorsey. The very next year, we opened up at Penn State against a record-setting crowd (109,313), and we didn’t freaking bat an eye. That place was pretty freaking loud, but not as loud as that (Husky Stadium).

Mike Rumph, Miami, cornerback, 1998-2001: We had never been to the West Coast before. We all were like, in awe, like, “Holy s—, we’re on West Coast.” We’re like, “All those f—ing mountains in the background.” We never seen no mountains and no hills. They got Mount Rainier, like a f—ing snow cap in the backdrop. So, not saying we weren’t focused, but we were really impressed with the fact that we’re on the West Coast, and we had never been there before. We weren’t fully locked in.

Gonzalez: I didn’t expect the game to be as difficult as it was. Not from a football standpoint, but from all of the other stuff, having to travel the six hours and the time change. The impact of traveling out there, the stadium conditions in terms of the noise and stuff. You live and you learn.

Tuiasosopo: Husky Stadium was electric that day. When our defense was on the field, it was like an earthquake.

Rumph: It’s my top five loudest places, honestly. And I played against the Seattle Seahawks as a Niner.

Tripplett: I probably had a very ignorant confidence. When I played in Husky Stadium, I used to feel like Superman. I’m gonna be honest, I felt invincible there, so I was not intimidated by them at all. That’s just the ignorance of youth I guess.

Rich Alexis, Washington, running back, 2000-03: Neuheisel was just cool. He was just being Neuheisel. Very encouraging. Just smiling. He’s got a pretty smile, nice hair, he was just ready. He felt confident. I don’t know why. He probably knew something we didn’t know. We took his lead, and then everybody was just calm and cool. Because if the coach would have spazzed out or freaked out, I think everybody would have got that message too. But that day, he was just chill.

Miami’s defense handled Washington on its first series, but the Huskies responded by forcing a turnover on the ensuing punt return.

Tuiasosopo: One of our guys puts his helmet on the ball, and Santana Moss coughed it up. Then, we went down and scored. We were gonna need plays like that, and it happened.

Alexis: There was a bad rep about the West Coast teams — that we were soft, weren’t physical enough. That fumble on the punt return set the tone.

Washington was determined to lean on its seasoned offensive line and Tuiasosopo, its star QB. A year earlier, Tuiasosopo had run for 207 yards and passed for 302 against Stanford. Miami coach Butch Davis compared him to former Syracuse first-round pick Donovan McNabb, who had gashed the Canes in 1998 for 99 rushing yards to lead an attack that ran for 318 yards in a 66-13 victory for the Orangemen. The Huskies and offensive coordinator Keith Gilbertson also had a few surprises prepared for the Canes’ vaunted defense. 

Tuiasosopo: Coach Gilbertson made sure that we had a wrinkle to take advantage of. We put that weakside mid-line option in. I think we held that back for them.

Myers: We were an I-option offense. They weren’t overly multiple on defense. They were so athletic, they didn’t have to play many defenses. Greg Schiano was their DC. Miami’s had always been known as a 4-3, quarters team, but Schiano had some good third-down blitz packages. He’s a really good defensive coach. But they didn’t face many option teams. Back then, Syracuse was an option team, a little like us. We studied them quite a bit.

The Huskies weren’t running all over Miami, but Tuiasosopo was moving the ball. He led them on a nine-play, 80-yard touchdown drive that he capped off with a 12-yard run on an option keeper that featured three broken tackles. He later connected with Washington’s standout tight end Jerramy Stevens for a 23-yard TD pass to give the Huskies a 21-3 halftime lead.

Myers: We did a lot of motion from the backfield to empty and threw the ball on them because we knew what they would check to. Our empty passing game was really effective in that game. We knew they would check to two-deep, so we threw option routes to Jerramy Stevens and Joe Collier and Willie Hurst, our tailback, who would be a slot receiver in our formation. It was very effective for us. I didn’t recall seeing Miami play against much empty back in those days.

Neuheisel: We hit a touchdown on an unbalanced scheme, and we had post-post-wheel and hit the wheel. It was good stuff.

Rumph: They kept running the speed option. They found the wrinkle. They ran the speed option weak against us, and we couldn’t figure it out because they kept pulling the guard with the twist. We were one man short a lot. I remember that adjustment.

Tripplett: Tui was doing Tui Magic. He just makes stuff happen. And he was our leader. He was the type of leader that everybody on the team would run through a wall for. That year, we just knew as long as Tui was out there, we had a chance to win, and it proved to be true because we had some crazy comebacks that year.

Alexis: The guy just had swagger about him. Just calm, cool. It doesn’t matter what the moment was like. He would just be himself, calm, cool, just a born leader out there. He’d make sure everybody was not nervous. He was like that consistently all year. Those Samoan boys are different, man.

Rumph: He was a real good quarterback. He could run, he could throw. He was physical.

Gonzalez: We basically played like s— for a half. Santana fumbled, Dorsey fumbled. One of our other running backs fumbled as well. We had a field goal blocked. We definitely didn’t start great.

Miami woke up in the second half. The Canes scored their first of three third-quarter touchdowns on a 21-yard pass from Dorsey to Wayne, but the Huskies answered when Neuheisel inserted Alexis, a true freshman running back from South Florida, and called an option play with the ball at midfield. 

Alexis: I didn’t even know if I was gonna get in the game or not, but Neuheisel told me he wanted to just throw me in the game so my parents could see that I’m doing well. He threw me in the game, and I’m looking at Dan Morgan. I’m like, dang, everybody I looked up to was against me.

I wanted to be a Hurricane all along. It came down to Miami and Washington. Neuheisel told me if I came out there, I’d play running back. He needed a big running back. Miami was already loaded at running back. You got James Jackson and Clinton Portis. Me and Willis McGahee were in the same recruiting class. Greg Schiano wanted me to play safety. The only thing I knew how to do is just run the football.

Myers: We called 43-veer. That meant offensive tackle Elliot Silvers was to release inside and veer through to the first backer in the box, which would be the weakside backer, and they had taken their defensive ends and put them head up on the tackles. On the second or third series, we went to that arc option part of the scheme (reading Miami’s defensive end) so that we could get their defensive end to tackle (fullback) Pat Conniff. And, if he didn’t, then Conniff was to get the ball in the option, and we wouldn’t end up pitching the ball. Elliot is a really, really smart kid. Their guy was really squeezing down. Elliot and (guard) Chad Ward said to me, “Coach, we need to arc this stuff because we can’t get through.” We ended up optioning the safety, the corner was being blocked and we went right down the sideline. It was awesome.

Tuiasosopo: The option kept them on their heels and off-guard. It was gonna be a quick pitch. I got nailed. I was lying on the ground, but I saw him get around the corner and make that first guy miss, and I looked at their end who was on top of me and I smiled. “That’s a touchdown!”

Alexis: I really didn’t think he was going to pitch it. I went to the left with him, till he dove in with a quick dive, and he just pitched it to me, and I just took off. I couldn’t believe I made the touchdown. I mean, I was just in shock. You watch the replay, I froze. I didn’t know what to do. I was holding onto the ball. I didn’t even know how to celebrate. I just ran by Mike (Rumph), the late Al Blades, I saw all these guys, and I couldn’t believe I just scored. I was just so overwhelmed with joy.

Washington led 27-9 with a little over six minutes remaining in the third quarter, but Miami started to heat up offensively as Portis broke some big plays and Morgan recovered a Tuiasosopo fumble to set up another UM touchdown to make it 27-22 with 3:50 left in the third. Washington, though, never wilted and kept responding. On defense, Tripplett was a menace. He had two sacks, blocked a field goal and recovered a fumble in the fourth quarter. Miami had one last chance to rally, getting the ball back with 20 seconds left at their own 20 down 34-29, but Dorsey couldn’t rescue the Canes. 

Neuheisel: We ended up beating them because we played some slight of hand with some option and had some decent concepts to trick them in the red zone. We were able to run the ball against them some, which not very many people could.

Gonzalez: I think if we have probably eight to 10 more seconds at the end of that game, we win it. There was a moment in that game where things kind of just started clicking.

Rumph: They had like 800 recruits there, and their head coach looks at us as we’re leaving the field, and he goes, “You don’t want to go play there. You want to play here. You don’t want to go to Miami. Play here.” I vividly remember that. And as we exited through that tunnel, their players were barking at us. We were actually trying to fight them a little bit, but they were barking.

Miami’s trip to Washington in 2000 was Ken Dorsey’s first road start. (Otto Greule Jr. / Allsport)

Gonzalez: It was just a s—-y situation to start the season. When you start off the season, you have all of these hopes and aspirations for all of these big things that you’re going to do. You never want to start off, in any sport — no matter if you’re playing Pee Wee or whatever — you never want to start off 1-1. More so in college sports at that time, one loss in any part of your season meant that you weren’t a contender anymore for the national championship. You fast forward to the end of the year, and we get screwed, even after beating Florida State head to head. Because of us, really, that’s why they changed the BCS.

Miami finished the regular season 10-1 with wins over No. 1 Florida State and No. 2 Virginia Tech (by 20 points), but those were the Canes’ only wins over ranked opponents. Washington also went 10-1, with its lone loss coming at Oregon, three weeks after beating UM. The Huskies also had just two Top 25 victories, with their other win over No. 23 Oregon State. The Noles ended up getting the title shot against No. 1 Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, even though the Canes were ranked No. 2 in the coaches and AP polls. They were ranked third in the BCS.

Delvin Brown, Miami, DB, 1997-2000: What happened that year that people don’t remember is Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech had a game that was canceled because of lightning. Lee Corso’s car got struck by lightning, and because Virginia Tech didn’t play Georgia Tech, our strength of schedule was actually weak. If we would have had a stronger strength of schedule, even despite our loss to Washington, we would have played in the national championship game. The good news is we still got to put a spanking on Florida (in the Sugar Bowl) that year. That was the year we fought them on Bourbon Street. Alex Brown ended up being a first-round pick for Chicago. We beat him up in the bar. He was in the postgame with a black eye.

Gonzalez: I remember walking out this white painted tunnel with pictures of Washington greats all around, in pain with my f—ing ribs, and just f—ing sitting there and saying, “All this f—ing work wasted.” But I think that sparked the fire in us.

To get slapped in the f—ing face the way that we did by Washington, it could have been very easy for us to go the other way. How did that become the turning point? It’s hard for me to kind of verbalize. I just think that we had all worked so hard that we weren’t going to let that define us. We really busted our ass that summer. UM had always had the offseason workouts. The test for stamina was always 16 110s. That’s what you had to run to make sure that you were ready for the season. If you didn’t, you had to run it every day until you passed it. But that offseason was the first offseason that the guys on the team said, “No, 16, is not good enough. We gotta run 20 110s now.” Then, my senior year, we said, “It’s not 20 anymore. It’s 24 110s.”

Davis left the Canes after the season to become the Cleveland Browns coach. Offensive coordinator Larry Coker was promoted after Miami’s veteran leaders, who had opted to stay in Coral Gables, lobbied the school’s AD, Paul Dee, to make that move for continuity’s sake. The Canes opened the 2001 season at Penn State and destroyed the Nittany Lions, 33-7. They pounded Rutgers 61-0 with the rematch against Washington, who had beaten No. 11 Michigan, up next. But then 9/11 happened. Like most games that weekend, it was postponed. The game was tentatively rescheduled for Thanksgiving weekend, when both schools had open dates. 

Neuheisel: We had just beaten Washington State. We were beat up. We were 8-2. I told (Washington AD) Barbara (Hedges), “Barbara, just tell them that we’ll do it another year. We don’t need to go.” She said, “Oh, we have to.”

I said, “No, we don’t. Other people have turned it down. We’ll play ’em another year.” We went and got waxed.

Myers: I can remember sitting in the staff room and Rick was adamant about not playing that game because we didn’t need to. A lot of people around the country weren’t replaying that game they’d missed early in the season because of 9/11. Rick was not happy about it.

In addition to beating Michigan, Washington had defeated No. 10 Stanford and No. 9 Washington State. Miami had blown out No. 13 Florida State on the road and beat No. 15 Syracuse 59-0. The Canes — and their fans — were primed for the Huskies. 

Myers: As soon as we got down there to the Orange Bowl parking lot, they were throwing oranges at our bus. The fans were ready for us. That was crazy.

Tripplett: They were throwing oranges at us. Little kids were giving us the finger. They were really pissed at us.

On the second play of the game, Miami linebacker Jonathan Vilma intercepted Washington QB Cody Pickett. Miami needed one play, a Portis run, to score its first touchdown. In the next series, UW went on a 15-play drive. Alexis broke a 31-yard run up the middle to the 2, but the Canes stiffened and stuffed four successive runs. 

Myers: From then on, we didn’t move the ball hardly at all. It was like we poked the bear. They just bludgeoned us after that. We couldn’t move the big man from the Patriots, (Vince) Wilfork, at all.

Gonzalez: We beat them up and down every f—ing which way, and every facet, every metric that you could imagine in the f—ing game. And I remember that the athletic director for Washington said that they would never play us again. I do remember Larry Coker calling a timeout only to allow the seniors to come out of the game because we’re already winning by a lot. And I do have a beautiful picture of me and (offensive lineman Martin) Bibla in the center of the Orange Bowl with our helmets up, walking off the field in the middle of the fourth quarter, whatever it was.

But I do remember at some point in that game, I don’t know when that was in the second or the third quarter, I remember standing up on top of the bench and calling the whole team together and (saying), “Don’t you ever f—ing forget what these guys did to us last year. You f—ing shove it down their f—ing throat and you f—ing make them feel the f—ing pain that we felt last year.” Those were the exact words that I used. I remember that. My hands are shaking. I’m ready to f—ing run through a f—ing wall right now. I remember telling the guys that.”

Miami led Washington 37-0 at halftime and won 65-7. Pickett fumbled twice and was sacked four times. The Canes intercepted six passes. Miami went on to win the national title, with the 2001 team regarded as one of the greatest in college football history.

Tripplett: I don’t know if they felt this way or not, that cross-country flight is a beast. That was a challenge. I’m not using that as an excuse, but it definitely plays a role, and I wonder if it played a role at their end as well. They had a different mindset. They were trying to beat us down, and that’s exactly what they did. We were not ready. We had Cody Pickett, he was young. Reggie Williams was a freshman. This was not the Tui-led Huskies in that game.

Rumph: Damien Lewis, Dan Morgan, feel bad for those guys. I mean, the 2000 team was probably just as good or better than the 2001 team. But we lost that game.

Tripplett: I remember when I got into the league, I played with Reggie Wayne (with the Colts), and I’d joke that they were basically an all-star team. They had so many first-rounders (15) and the only first-rounder we had was our tight end, Jerramy Stevens.

Many of the players in the 2000 and 2001 Miami-Washington games now have sons who are college recruits themselves. Miami head coach Mario Cristobal was a grad assistant on the UM staff in 2000 when the Canes lost but wasn’t on staff when Miami got its revenge in 2001 because he’d taken the O-line job at Rutgers when Schiano became the Scarlet Knights head coach. One of Cristobal’s big recruits in the 2026 class is a South Florida kid whose family knows all about the Washington-Miami rivalry — running back Javian Mallory, the nephew of Rich Alexis.

Alexis: It was a full circle moment because we had a lot of people amongst our family who are Canes at heart. Now, you got one that’s actually going to be a Cane. We got one, at least.

(Top photos of Rick Neuheisel, Reggie Wayne: Otto Greule Jr. / Allsport)

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A 14-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy were among the four suspects arrested during a recent undercover operation in Miami-Dade County, according to deputies.

Surveillance video at a CVS on Tuesday in South Miami Heights shows the teenage girl had climbed over the pharmacy’s counter to search the shelves of prescription medications, according to deputies.

A detective later saw the two teens who are cousins arrive together at a Walgreens in West Perrine in a gray Dodge Durango that the boy was driving, according to the arrest reports in the case.

Records show detectives believe the teens were after promethazine with codeine, a prescription medication used to temporarily relieve upper respiratory symptoms that is also an ingredient of “purple drank,” a recreational drug also known as “Lean” or “Sizzurp.”

According to Detective Luis Sierra, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office, the other two suspects arrested during the undercover operation were Yordan Pratspiloto and Jorge Hitchman-Alonso, a convicted felon.

Detectives caught Hitchman, 62, with a shopping cart carrying two electric pressure washer machines worth about $350 that he had not paid for after walking out of a Home Depot in South Miami Heights, according to the deputies’ arrest report.

Deputies also accused Pratspiloto, 42, of stealing about $84 in items from Burlington and over $405 from Ross in Cutler Bay; and about $150 in items from Burlington in Kendall, according to deputies.

In all, Pratspiloto’s alleged crime spree on Tuesday involved him hiding items worth more than $645 in the waistband of his shorts at the three stores, according to the deputies’ arrest report.

In 2023, Pratspiloto was among the trio who stole about $1,000 in women’s shoes from Burlington in Doral, records show.