Tomás will probably spend longer thinking about this defeat than any of us will.

That’s one thing I’ve learnt about him over the last three years. Results bother him, obviously, but they’re never the thing that keeps him awake. It’s the questions. Why didn’t that relationship work? Why did that space disappear? Why did one player understand an idea while another looked as though he’d never heard it before? You can almost see him solving the game in his head long after everyone else has gone home.

He experimented again tonight, and this one didn’t quite come off. Miami are still searching for someone who can consistently finish the chances they’re beginning to create, so he tried something different, asking Jamir Johnson to lead the line. It wasn’t Johnson playing as a traditional striker either. It was much more fluid than that. Christian Cappis who started in the left wing back slot, but he was asked to tuck in alongside another new face, Georgia-born David Sibrian, allowing Miami to build with a much cleaner three at the back and a double pivot. Ahead of them, with Rocha returning from injury, the two attacking midfielders drifted far wider than we’ve seen previously and, for five minutes at the end, Joel Sonora made his long-awaited return, allowing Benja Cremaschi freedom and Castillo to stretch the pitch wide on the right. On paper it resembled a 3-4-2-1. In reality, it looked much closer to one of the strange 3-2-2-3 shapes that Villalba seems to sketch on whiteboards when nobody else is looking.

The fascinating part is how little he seems to care about labels. Halfway through the second half Isaiah Parente came on and, within minutes, the entire structure shifted again. The right wing-back suddenly started stepping inside during the build-up, almost becoming another midfielder, while the rest of the team mirrored: left wing back aggressive, left sided ten sitting in. I’d never have noticed that sort of thing a few years ago. Truthfully, I probably wouldn’t even have understood why it mattered. Now I found myself watching the spaces between players more than the players themselves, wondering what problem Tomás was trying to solve rather than whether the formation looked unusual.

I still think Miami deserved something from the evening. Not because they dominated, but because you can see the outline of an idea beginning to emerge. There are moments when the football suddenly makes sense, where three or four passes fit together exactly as though they’ve been rehearsed a hundred times, before reality reminds everyone that this group has only been together for a matter of weeks.

That’s the strange privilege of doing this job. I get to stand on the touchline with a camera around my neck, post the result everyone else sees, then quietly watch a coach trying to build something that nobody else can quite see yet.


One thing that has quietly impressed me since arriving in Miami is how seriously this club treats its academy. It’s very easy for clubs to talk about pathways, opportunities and “the future”, but much harder to invest the time and money required to make those words mean something.

This week, five more youngsters put pen to paper on long-term deals: striker Kaleb Spielman, attacking midfielders Adrian Escobar and Jaydion Locadia, right wing-back Travis Ochoa and defensive midfielder David Lopez. They won’t all become first-team regulars – football simply doesn’t work like that – but the fact that the club are willing to commit to them says a great deal about where Miami believe their future lies.

What’s perhaps most interesting is how this fits alongside Tomás. Before Miami, youth development was never really his responsibility. At Greenville and Knoxville, promising youngsters arrived already identified by the recruitment staff and academy coaches. His job was to decide when they were ready to cross that final bridge into senior football. Here, though, it feels different. Miami expect the academy to be part of the first-team ecosystem rather than a separate department, and although these five boys will continue their education primarily with the academy staff, the plan is for them to step into senior training whenever the timing feels right. It’s a subtle difference, but an important one.

I suspect Tomás is enjoying the challenge more than he’ll admit publicly. He speaks constantly about leaving players in a better place than he found them, and nowhere is that philosophy tested more honestly than with teenagers who haven’t yet played a professional minute.

Success won’t be measured by how many contracts they’ve signed this week, but by how many of them are still wearing Miami blue three or four years from now. If this club really is building something sustainable, these names may be worth remembering.