It’s time for Inter Miami to reward Phil Neville, Chris Henderson with new contracts | Opinion

An open letter to David Beckham, Jorge and Jose Mas:

The time has come to put your faith in Inter Miami coach Phil Neville and chief soccer officer Chris Henderson. Extend their contracts. Now.

If you were planning to wait until after the season to make your decision, when their two-year contracts expire, there is no need. If you were waiting to see if the team makes the playoffs, that should not be the determining factor.

Neville and Henderson (and their staff) have earned the right to new contracts and job security with eight games to go in the regular season.

Inter Miami is one of the most improved teams in MLS this season, going from winless in the first five games and last place in the East to sixth place and in the playoff mix.

The team is on a five-game unbeaten streak. During the past four games Miami beat San Jose on the road, tied second-place Montreal on the road, beat second-place New York City FC and beat red-hot Toronto.

Inter Miami and its spirited supporters (“La Familia”) have turned DRV PNK Stadium into a fortress, as Neville and Henderson hoped would happen. The Men in Pink have won eight league home games, tied for best in the Eastern Conference this season and have just one home loss in the past 12 MLS and U.S. Open Cup games.

Those would be impressive results for any team, but they are especially significant considering Henderson had to completely rebuild the team in Year Three to clean up the costly mess he inherited, a mess he had no idea he was stepping into.

Henderson and Neville, along with their scouts, scoured the globe to assemble a revamped roster with 19 new players. It is the most massive overhaul in league history. Their goal was to make the team younger, faster, hungrier — and, yes, cheaper, to compensate for more than $2 million in fines levied by MLS for roster rules violations related to Blaise Matuidi’s contract, which was negotiated before Henderson’s and Neville’s arrivals.

Inter Miami dropped 17 players from last year’s roster, including high-priced designated players Matuidi and Rodolfo Pizarro and fan favorites Lewis Morgan, Leandro Gonzalez Pirez and Nico Figal.

Most pundits predicted that the team would struggle mightily this season, that it would take years to recover.

Other than U.S. national team right back DeAndre Yedlin, the 2022 signees were hardly well-known names: Fiesty young midfielder Bryce Duke from Los Angeles FC, MLS draft pick Ryan Sailor, Brazilian midfielder Jean Mota, Jamaican national team captain Damion Lowe, Swedish defender Christopher McVey, Ecuadorean striker Leonardo Campana, Colombian winger Emerson Rodriguez, versatile Finn Robert Taylor and speedy winger Ariel (son of Roy) Lassiter, who came from Houston Dynamo.

Drake Callender and Aime Mabika, who spent most of last season on the reserve team, were promoted. Two other reserve players were also signed to first-team deals, Noah Allen and Harvey Neville, son of the coach, who joined the senior squad on Tuesday.

This summer, the club added 2020 MLS MVP Alejandro Pozuelo, whom they got in a trade with Toronto, and winger Coco Jean from French team RC Lens.

Little by little, this motley crew has become one of the most tight-knit teams I have covered in more than three decades. No discernible locker room cliques. Lots of laughter, banter, and energy at practice. Charades and trivia contests on road trips. Thanks in large part to Yedlin, a natural leader, the team has new traditions: a meditation group, barefoot walks after training, a pink pregame fashion runway.

Neville’s background is old school, Manchester United, English national team. But players say he has been open-minded and lets them help shape the team culture. He got the team a basketball hoop, which has been a big hit. Seeing the players’ love of fashion, he started a “Best Dressed” and “Worst Dressed” contest.

“He listens to us and lets us express our individuality,” Yedlin said.

Sailor agreed: “He’s done a really good job of building a connected team. We’re a really close group and a big part of that is him.”

When Neville has to be tough, he is. He benched the team’s highest-paid player, $5 million former Real Madrid and Juventus striker Gonzalo Higuain, and started 21-year-old Campana in his place. Higuain didn’t like it. Who would? He pouted for a few weeks. But the demotion — and the addition of Pozuelo — motivated Higuain. He is now in the best shape he has been in since his arrival in 2020. He scored six goals during the past seven games, returned to the starting lineup, makes runs he rarely did before and is admittedly the happiest he has been in a long time.

It took Neville awhile to figure out where his players best fit on the field, but he finally seems to have them where they belong.

On April 5, in this very column space, after hearing a chorus of boos during a 3-1 home loss to Houston, I wrote:

“South Florida’s long-suffering soccer fans are starting to get restless, and who can blame them?

“Inter Miami is only five games into its third season, but the results so far are not promising. The team remains winless with one tie and four losses. With just one point in the standings, Inter Miami is in last place among the league’s 28 teams and its minus-10 goal differential (three goals scored, 13 allowed) also ranks last in MLS.”

Neville urged fans and media to be patient: “We brought in the players that we wanted to bring in. Now I can 100 percent say that this roster is mine and Chris’ and we feel as an organization we’re in a miles’ better place to reach our goals and create the culture we want.”

Inter Miami finished 10th the first season under then-coach Diego Alonso, good enough a spot in the COVID-expanded playoff play-in game, which they lost. Last season, their first under Neville, they finished 11th, out of the playoffs.

Time will tell where this team ends up, but the turnaround has national pundits singing Neville’s and Henderson’s praises in recent days.

“Phil Neville has turned in something close to a masterclass of a performance as head coach this year,” wrote Matt Doyle of MLS.com.

Doyle goes on to list the boxes Neville is checking:

“Simplified structure puts everyone in comfortable spots and allows easy toggling between 4-2-3-1 and 5-4-1 formations. He’s gotten significant contributions and development from young guys [Callender, Sailor, Duke, Campana]. Between Pozuelo and Higuain he’s getting elite production from his DPs.

“You don’t have to be Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp. If you check those three boxes, you’re going to do damn well in just about any league and that’s true here as well as Miami have gone 10W-6L-5D since April 9.”

Fox Soccer analysts Stu Holden and Alexi Lalas also chimed in.

“They lost four of their first five games, changed two-thirds of their roster, and I thought they would be near the bottom of the Eastern Conference, laughable in many respects, but this team, boy, they deserve a lot of credit,” Holden said. “It starts in the front office with Chris Henderson.. and Phil Neville deserves a ton of credit” for not losing the locker room after failing to win the first five games and for benching Higuain.

Lalas added: “Chris Henderson was given lemons and he’s made lemonade.”

It’s time to reward Henderson and Neville for a job well done. Why wait?