MLS names Inter Miami trio Neville, Pizarro and Mota to Matchday 2 Team of the Week

Three Herons have earned spots on Major League Soccer's Team of the Matchday 2 team after Inter Miami's 2-0 win Saturday against Philadelphia Union, the defending Eastern Conference champions.

MLS named midfielder Rodolfo Pizarro to the first XI and midfielder Jean Mota to the bench. Phil Neville got the nod as the team's coach.

Pizarro's selection is a recognition of his resurgence since returning to South Florida after a year on loan in his native Mexico.

""He's playing some of the best football I've seen him play.""

- Phil Neville on Rodolfo Pizzaro

Pizarro, 29, came to Miami in 2020 as the club's second designated player after a promising start to his career in his native Mexico. Pizarro scored 34 goals in 277 matches in eight years at Pachuca, Guadalajara and Monterrey. He's made 38 appearance and scored 5 goals for the Mexican National Team.


Pizarro never found his stride in his first two seasons in South Florida, managing just 7 goals and 12 assists in 46 matches. He and Argentine striker Gonzalo Higuain, the team's marquee player, after a stellar European career, never meshed (in fairness, most of the original Herons struggled to develop chemistry or an identity in those seasons).


When MLS smacked Inter Miami with sanctions for violating roster rules before the 2022 season, management cleaned house, virtually starting from scratch. Pizzaro was sent on loan to Monterrey in Liga MX, where he struggled through another lackluster season while Neville and his team of castoffs and youngsters worked their way to a 6th-place finish and the squad's first REAL playoffs (I can't count the expanded COVID bubble games).

Now, Pizarro is back and Higuain has taken his Comeback Player of the Year Award and ridden off into retirement. Inter Miami 4.0 is different than the Herons teams Pizarro played with in the past. He's made a new start and, so far, so good. Take it from Neville:


“We told Rodolfo to go express himself and play with freedom, and you see the boy playing with a smile on his face, taking the ball and I think it was a big step forward for Rodo psychologically,” Neville said after La Rosanegra's Matchday 1 win against Montreal.

Pizarro's effort continued against the Union, prompting Neville to say postgame that "he's playing some of the best football I've seen him play." Pizarro was credited with a first-half assist after losing control of a ball that Corentin Jean corralled and blasted into the lower left corner of the net.

Neville's side has won its first two matches of the season without conceding a goal, a more impressive feat considering the Herons defeated the Eastern Conference's top two teams from 2022. The skipper is too savvy to get too excited with 32 league matches left to play, though:

“I think it's too soon to start making big statements,” Neville told MLSsoccer.com's Jonathan Sigal. “This is just a continuation of the journey and the build from last year where we do feel like there's a different feeling around this football club.”

Mota contributed his usually solid defensive performance and assisted Robert Taylor's magnificent second-half strike, his second assist in two games, and also completed 80.4 percent of his passes.

Drake Callender and Sergio Kryvtsov earned Team of the Week honors after Matchday 1.