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Phil Neville not daunted by scale of task in Miami

David Beckham’s old United mate is relishing Inter challenge

New Inter Miami manager Phil Neville. Photo: Emilio Andreoli Expand

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New Inter Miami manager Phil Neville. Photo: Emilio Andreoli

New Inter Miami manager Phil Neville. Photo: Emilio Andreoli

New Inter Miami manager Phil Neville. Photo: Emilio Andreoli

Steve Brenner

David Beckham’s playing career was packed full of breathtaking highs, yet success as an owner has proven harder to find.

The former England captain entered uncharted waters in 2014 when he announced his intention to start a team in Major League Soccer, and it has been far from plain sailing since.

His issues around finding and funding a new stadium are well known. Yet for all the headaches off the pitch for Beckham and his Inter Miami co-owners — who include Masayoshi Son, one of the richest men in Japan — a more pressing question has emerged as the Florida side begin their second season in the MLS: are they any good?

There is little point in building a stadium that becomes the envy of the league if you cannot back it up with results. Beckham knows this, and it is why the former Manchester United and Real Madrid midfielder has seized the reins and gone back to what he knows.

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In a wretched first campaign under the tutelage of Diego Alonso, the Uruguayan former Valencia striker, the club lost their first five games and finished with just seven wins from 23 matches. They scraped a play-off place yet a comprehensive defeat in Nashville soon followed. 

Beckham, marooned in the UK as the coronavirus pandemic paralysed the globe, was far from impressed and, once able to return to south Florida last Christmas, the 45-year-old ripped up the script and started again.

Based in downtown Miami in a plush apartment block, Beckham has been in daily attendance at the club’s impressive training facility, which has doubled up as a vaccination centre since the turn of the year. He needed to act — and did so with impressive vigour.

Plan A had been to ingratiate the team with the sizeable Hispanic fan base with the appointment of a South American coach.

That failed, so instead it was time for plan B: a boy from Bury, Beckham’s old mate Phil Neville.

With Chester-born Ryan Shawcross joining Beckham and Neville in the tropical state, Inter Miami 2.0 have a distinctly Mancunian flavour.

“The support David has given me has been so good, and I think the players and staff recognise that,” Neville said. “I am just excited about getting started.”

Alonso was sacked after paying the price for a substandard first season, even if the pandemic was a mitigating circumstance like no other.

Club sources indicated change was sorely needed — one said the mess left by Alonso, a decent man but out of his depth, and sporting director Paul McDonough was like nothing he had ever witnessed — and the pair were quickly replaced by Neville and the highly lauded former US midfielder Chris Henderson. It has been a baptism of fire.

Six pre-season games were cancelled because of coronavirus outbreaks, leaving Neville heading into today’s opening match against LA Galaxy badly short of match time. “We won’t be 100 per cent fit,” he admitted.

While the squad is lacking attacking options, Neville has at least been able to bolster the defensive ranks. Shawcross arrived to join fellow Britons Anthony Pulis, the assistant coach, and midfielder Lewis Morgan, the former Celtic winger who was the standout performer last season.  

Much, however, will rest on the shoulders of former Real Madrid and Juventus striker Gonzalo Higuain, who managed just one goal following his move last summer, yet remains Neville’s best hope of success in the final third.

The Argentine cuts a surly figure, with one observer at a recent friendly against Miami FC, the team managed by Paul Dalglish who play in the USL, effectively the second tier in the United States, saying he did not stop complaining in a game where he scored the only goal. But he remains a class apart at this level.

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Neville has taken to the task with relish, enjoying living locally and getting to grips with the myriad rulings and regulations ensconced within the framework of MLS.

The task is daunting — only the top seven teams from each conference will make the post-season compared to the 10 who were allowed in 2020 (Miami sneaked into the final play-off slot on the last day of last season) — yet it is a target that is achievable if the squad can be strengthened and Neville’s penchant for attacking, possession-based football is grasped.

The arrival of Kieran Gibbs in the summer will help, although the mismanagement under the watch of the painfully pragmatic Alonso will take time to redress.

Neville, in his first job in club management, could scarcely believe some of the debris left to clear up, but he is not daunted by the scale of his task.

“My other coaching jobs have been different,” the former England women’s manager said. “But because I’ve experienced different things, this actually feels normal.”

© Telegraph Media Group Limited 2021

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]

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