South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Neville expected to be named as new head coach
It’s looking like Inter Miami CF will lock in its new head coach in the coming days.
According to Sky Sports, Phil Neville is expected to be named Inter Miami’s new coach as early as next week.
The report added that Neville, 43, will step down from his role as the head coach of England’s women’s national soccer team, a position he’s held since 2018.
Inter Miami announced Thursday that Diego Alonso was out as coach after having “mutually agreed to part ways.”
Reports from earlier in the week stated that David Beckham, Inter Miami co-owner and president of soccer operations, was in talks with Neville about the coaching position before Alonso’s departure was official.
Beckham and Neville were teammates at Manchester United from 1994-2003 before Beckham joined Real Madrid. They were also teammates on England’s men’s national soccer team and are both co-owners of English Football League Two — the fourth tier of the English football league system — club Salford City, along with other former Manchester United players.
Inter Miami didn’t respond when reached for comment about the reports via a club spokesperson.
Neville was expected to leave his position as England’s women’s national soccer team coach when his contract expires in July, with current Netherlands women’s national soccer team coach Sarina Wiegman taking over for Neville in September after the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Baroness Sue Campbell, the Football Association’s — England’s governing body of soccer — director of women’s soccer, confirmed with BBC Sport that Neville has had conversations with Inter Miami when discussing his role as England’s coach.
“We did make a decision that Phil [Neville] would lead Team
GB in November and we were moving toward an announcement when he started to have these discussions,” Campbell told BBC Sport. “Until those discussions are concluded, I can’t really say any more.
“If Phil remains, he will be Team GB coach. If he goes, we obviously have something to think about and work through. That is where we are.
“It is his long-term future and it is up to him to make his decision. I’m certainly not privy to any detailed conversations he is having with Inter Miami, but I know he is having conversations.”
Inter Miami’s had a roster, coaching and front-office overhaul after its disappointing inaugural Major League Soccer season. It finished the 2020 regular season with a 7-13-3 record (10th place in the 14-team Eastern Conference), squeaked into the MLS Cup playoffs by qualifying on the season’s final day in an expanded postseason format and was eliminated by fellow expansion team Nashville SC in a 3-0 blowout in the playoffs’ play-in round Nov. 20.
At least 10 players — and possibly more — from Inter Miami’s inaugural roster didn’t rejoin the team for 2021, with most of the players from last year’s team who are no longer under contract with the club not expected to return.
Paul McDonough — who stepped down as Inter Miami’s sporting director and chief operating officer last month — will reportedly return to Atlanta United FC, where he served as the club’s vice president of soccer operations from January 2016 through August 2018 before joining Inter Miami.
Club ownership and management haven’t been made available for comment since the end of the season.
Beckham returned to South Florida from England over the weekend. He posted pictures of himself at Inter Miami CF Stadium in Fort Lauderdale on Instagram with the caption, “Grateful to be back in Miami. Lots of hard work ahead...New start, new season...Let’s go.”