David Beckham, Owner of Inter Miami CF, was infuriated when asked if he hired his former teammate at Manchester United, Phil Neville, To coach the team given their friendship for many years.
Neville, who was hired to coach the Major League Soccer club on Monday, played with Beckham at United from 1994 to 2003, and with the England national team from 1996 to 2007, and are co-owners of Salford. City of fourth division in England. Neville coached the England women’s team from 2018 until this month, and the Three Lions lost to the United States in a 2019 World Cup semifinal.
However, when asked at the new coach’s introductory press conference if friendship was a factor in Neville’s hiring, Beckham insisted the hiring has nothing to do with it.
“Of course, people will always turn around and say, ‘ah, it’s because he’s your friend.’ It has nothing to do with him being my friend,” Beckham said Friday. owners not only give work to friends.We use the best people, whether on the field, off the field, in our staff, the staff who work in our training facilities, in the stadium.
“We’re running a serious football club here. And I think at the end of the day, we hired the people we think are best suited for the job.”
Neville said he is aware that many foreign coaches have had problems in MLS with the salary cap, artificial turf and extreme weather conditions, with the exception of Gerardo Martino, With Atlanta, in 2018 and Gary Smith, With Colorado, in 2010. He recalled spending eight weeks watching the coach work Bruce Arena with Beckham during his stay with the LA Galaxy at the end of his career.
“The biggest challenge for me as a coach is to come here and show people that foreign coaches can come and be successful,” Neville said. “There will be things about travel and the different time zones that we will have to adapt to, too. But ultimately, I think in my football career, in my short career as a coach, I’ve had to adapt. to different situations such as travel, weather, etc.
“So I have a good experience with that. I went out to the United States for every preseason where we were in a different city every two or three days. We had to adapt. And we did. We were playing a game on the coast. East, the west coast, every two or three days. So I look forward to the challenge. “
Neville inherits a squad that includes striker Gonzalo Higuain and midfielder Blaise Matuidi, both 33 years old.
“I think those players know there are injuries. They’re a little scared right now about last season’s performances,” Neville said. “They want to come back this season and show all the good players they are. So there’s that hunger, that determination that I’ve seen this week, that I’m sure we can incorporate into the season, with a little more quality in terms of the players that we want to lead, I think we will become a really strong team “.
Neville was assistant coach in Valencia in 2015 – 2016 during the time his brother Gary was technical director. Phil Neville was too nervous to answer questions in Spanish on Friday, but plans to start after the first game this season.
Neville anticipates a smooth transition from coaching women to men.
“The sessions I did at Manchester United and the sessions I did in Valencia were no different from the sessions I did for my women’s team last year,” she said. “It’s a football that is played on the same field, with balls of the same size, with a referee, with the fans in the stadium and in the end the same goal, and that’s winning.”