By Melissa Hart
David Beckham’s vision of making Florida the soccer capital of the United States has taken a nosedive before reaching anywhere near cruising altitude. In fact, one might even go as far as to say that the Englishman’s dream of turning the state into the powerhouse of American soccer hasn’t even managed to get off the ground yet.
This is in stark contrast to what was predicted for Beckham's club Inter Miami who competes in the MLS’ Eastern Conference. There were high hopes that the club would enjoy a spectacular take off but after an underwhelming first season in 2020, Inter Miami now finds themselves just three points off the last place in the table after ten games in 2021. The harsh reality is that there will be no silverware for Inter Miami this season given how far they find themselves down the league.
Crucially, they were one of the favorites with the bookies before the season started. Indeed, as asiabet.org explains here about soccer betting markets and the likelihood of winning trophies, outright winner markets are a straightforward and popular choice when one bets on soccer. Basically, punters bet on the winner of a match, league, or cup competition and there would have been many people who had bet on Inter Miami winning the MLS this season. The truth is, that ship has sailed and it’s not only on the field where the problems are mounting.
The club has been found to have broken Major League Soccer’s roster rules last season and received sanctions from the league office. This has created an unwanted distraction from the goings-on on the field of play. Try as Beckham and his fellow investors might, they just can’t seem to find the right mix off the field that will influence results on it. Naturally, this means that the revolution that was set to benefit places like Apopka and grassroots football in the Orange County city will have to wait until Inter Miami find the momentum they desperately need.
Current Inter Miami boss Phil Neville is a long-term friend of David Beckham and a former teammate. The two played together at Manchester United and represented England together before Neville went into management, eventually taking up the job as the coach of England’s women’s team in January 2018. Speak to any fan across the Atlantic in England and you’ll hear less than complimentary reviews of Neville’s time in charge of the Three Lionesses. Many believe the 44-year-old took the women’s game in Britain backwards.
Indeed, when Neville left his post in January 2021 to take up the job as Inter Miami boss, there was a feeling of relief around the country and the hope that a new broom would sweep clean. All of a sudden, however, England’s gain was Miami’s loss as Neville jetted into America's east coast to begin working with the team his friend had entrusted him with. Needless to say, very few in the UK held much hope of a successful Neville tenure in Florida given how disappointing his time in charge of the women’s team had been.
It hasn’t come as much of a surprise then to see how poorly Inter Miami have been doing under Neville. The long and short of it is that Beckham has backed the wrong guy in a bid to see his new franchise begin hitting its straps. In reality, Inter Miami needed a proven coach with a big personality to breathe life into this new venture and not a man who hasn’t really excelled anywhere he's gone.
One of the knock-on effects of having a manager that is out of his depth is that they lose the changing room quite quickly when the going gets tough. Indeed, a great deal of capital outlay was spent on recruiting seasoned pros from Europe to Miami who have unfortunately up until this stage, done anything but hit the ground running. One can’t help but feel that they were sold the idea that the MLS was a retirement league by the Inter Miami hierarchy and subsequently have grossly misjudged the standard of competition in the US.
One just has to listen to former Real Madrid striker Gonzalo Higuain's thoughts on the MLS to grasp how underprepared he and other foreign imports have been at Inter Miami. Speaking to Bobo TV in early June, Higuain said: “I thought I would come here and play with a cigarette in my mouth and, instead, it is difficult.”
That’s certainly a warning shot to other players who are intending to come out to the US and play professional soccer. Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the world’s most important athletes as reported here by theapopkavoice.com, was thought to be considering a move to Inter Miami. But after Higuain's comments, perhaps he is now aware that the MLS is no country for old men.
This message was seemingly not relayed to Miami’s big-name players from Europe, and to a certain degree, it feels as if Neville also thought that the going would be easier than it is proving to be. It has been a season of one reality check after another for everyone connected to the club and the more you delve into the problem, the more it seems like a total reset is the only way for Beckham’s soccer project in Florida to take off.
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