Phil Neville in line to be first coach of Beckham’s Miami?

English women’s team coach Phil Neville is emerging at the likely choice to be new MLS club Inter Miami’s first coach.

The Florida expansion side is owned in part by David Beckham who played alongside Neville in Sir Alex Ferguson’s all conquering Manchester United side. It has been struggling to find a venue but is now scheduled to start playing in MLS next year in a temporary home.

Neville guided the Lionesses to fourth place in the recent Women’s World Cup but the 3rd place play off loss to Sweden seemed to rankle some of the English media, as the Swedes took the game a little more seriously. England were ranked third in the world when he took over so critics might ask how much progress he is making. Nonetheless, his contract runs until the end of the 2021 European Championships.

England v USA World Cup Gallery

Although England were highly competitive in their 2-1 semi final loss to eventual winners USA, the quality gap was evident and Neville may feel that four years is a long time to wait to have another crack at the Americans and prove his credentials, notwithstanding that the Euros are coming up in 2021 with England as the host nation.

Another possible clash though may be the Tokyo Olympics which take place from 24 July to 9 August 2020.

Neville has been selected by the English FA to coach Team GB, which only qualified through the Olympics by dint of England’s World  Cup performances. The FA runs the side under the auspices of the British Olympic Committee (BOA).

Having beaten both Wales and Scotland on their World Cup trajectory, Neville would be tasked with dropping some of his own players to make way for politically motivated selections from the Scottish and Welsh squads, in an effort to prove Team GB was more than an excuse to allow England to play in the Olympics.

Whereas players like Kim Little, Erin Cuthbert and Jessica Fishlock are arguably good enough to make any GB squad, there would be a highly unpleasant and nationalistic  series of arguments on behalf of those players Neville would be forced to omit to make way for them.

Such criticisms would only intensify once the camera panned the line up during God Save the Queen and the Scottish and Welsh players were pointedly not singing.

The right wing English newspapers worked themselves into a lather in 2012 when Ryan Giggs, Kim Little and others refused to join in the anthem, which both England and Britain use, during the London Olympics.

Giggs and fellow Welshman Craig Bellamy admitted they refused to sing because they were Welsh  and Little’s family said that she had chosen not to sing the anthem ‘because she is Scottish’.

Although the FA promised that a Team GB side would be a one off for the London Olympics, they subsequently decided that they would continue to enter a team in the women’s event, and have secured agreement from the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Football Associations to do so.

Selection alone, not to mention politics, would obviously be an unpleasant and awkward task for any manager and that’s before considering the almost blanket opposition to the idea from the Scottish and Welsh fans.

Given that TeamGB, which plays in no other competition, has no competitive matches before the Olympics, Neville could easily do both jobs at once. The Miami job would however be both a convenient and highly lucrative off-ramp from all the controversy and tough decisions to be made.

While his knowledge of MLS may be minimal, this might not be as big a drawback as it seems.

Sean Maslin, Editor-in-Chief of our sister site Prost Amerika observed:

“Coaches such as Tata Martino (formerly of Atlanta United FC), Matias Almeyda (San Jose Earthquakes), and Patrick Vieira (formerly of New York City FC) have all proven themselves to be quick learners of the nuances of MLS and used their experience to have immediate success.

Neville would of course have the expertise of Beckham himself as well as any backroom team he hired. The very high profile he received at the recent Women’s World Cup means he is fresh in the memories of US fans too young to remember his playing days.

His relationship with Beckham, who turned up to support Neville’s England side in France, is strong and the appointment would make sense on a number of levels.

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