Inter Miami Appoints Phil Neville as New Manager

MIAMI – Phil Neville will take the reigns of Inter Miami CF for its second season, the club announced on Monday, and he will join the club once he is able to make the move from England.

The appointment sees the Miami technical team take shape as he joined Chris Henderson who was also announced on Monday as the chief scout.

 “I am incredibly delighted for this opportunity to coach Inter Miami and to work with Chris and the entire ownership group. This is a very young club with a lot of promise and upside, and I am committed to challenging myself, my players and everyone around me to grow and build a competitive soccer culture we can all be proud of.”

Phil Neville

Neville’s hiring sees him re-unite with fellow Manchester United legend, David Beckham who owns the club and was delighted with his former team-mate joining the Herons.

“I am very happy with the leadership group we have established to lead the team as we turn the page following our inaugural season and look forward to having Chris and Phil join us soon. I have known Phil since we were both teenagers at the Manchester United Academy. We share a footballing DNA having been trained by some of the best leaders in the game, and it’s those values that I have always wanted running through our Club,” said Inter Miami CF Co-Owner David Beckham. “Phil has deep experience in football, as a player and as a coach at both club and international level, and over his career he has worked with many of the finest managers and players in the game. I know his qualities as a person, his decency, loyalty and honesty – and his incredible energy and work ethic. Anyone who has played or worked with Phil knows he is a natural leader, and I believe now is the right time for him to join.”

Despite qualifying for the Olympic Games with Great Britain’s women’s team, performances since then saw Neville under-pressure with seven losses in 11 matches, and led to the new Miami manager announcing he wouldn’t renew his contract after July 2021, and thus miss the Olympics. He resigned only hours before Inter Miami made the announcement.

Moving back to a men’s team may relieve him of the pressure of his sexist tweets which came to light when he was appointed as manager of the England national team, there will be no worries about such twitter controversies in Miami as he deleted his account following the controversy for his sexism.

It will be a harder task for taking Miami to success but his success in England has given hope to Miami. That said, his recent record with England has been less stellar in a world where they are the big guns, which should lead to question marks. Time will tell if it can be the 2019 Neville or the 2020 Neville.

Photo: El Loko, Creative Commons License