Inter Miami coach Phil Neville took a page from Bill Belichick to turn his team around
The surging Inter Miami team that boarded a plane Monday headed to Tuesday night’s game against Toronto FC is hardly recognizable from the one that hit rock bottom on July 21 with a 5-0 home loss to the New England Revolution.
That team was on a six-game losing skid — five by shutout — and ranked last in the MLS standings. Things were so bad that typically adoring home fans started booing. Critics on social media were saying first-year coach Phil Neville, who took over the team in January, was unfit for the job.
Eight weeks later, fans are cheering again, and the critics have changed their tune.
Since that embarrassing loss Inter Miami has gotten a result in nine of 10 games — six wins, three ties. The designated players have stepped up and put in performances worthy of their salaries. The once-porous defense has become practically impermeable with three clean sheets in a row, including a 1-0 win over MLS defending champion Columbus on Saturday.
Miami now sits in ninth place — two spots and two points below the Eastern Conference playoff line — with 12 games to go. They have a game in hand on the four teams just ahead of them.
Neville thanked team owners for their unwavering support during a rough June and July.
“You do not get much time in football as a manager now, but ultimately to make the changes we did it was always going to take six months,” Neville said. “I do not know how long it was from the start of the season to when [we lost 5-0 to the New England Revolution], but I bet it was about six months, give or take one or two weeks.
“But the change and the smell were happening before that, and it took six months to get them to where I wanted to get them to, to get them to understand what I was about, to get them to understand what it takes to become and have a successful team. Which means you can’t be a team of individuals. It means that you can’t just go out there and try to win the game on your own. The best teams don’t do that.”
Neville said he has employed a motto he learned from a book by New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick.
“I always refer to a great quote I saw from a great American coach Bill Belichick; he has one slogan in his football club and that is `Just do your job,’ and that’s what we have done over the last six to eight weeks.”
Three or four players have “little knocks” that were being evaluated at training Monday. Neville said he will wait until just before game time to decide on a starting lineup for the matchup against Toronto (7:30 p.m., My33, CW34, UniMas).
Defender Ryan Shawcross continues to struggle with a nagging back injury and will be out for the foreseeable future, Neville said. Even if he were healthy, “it would be difficult to break up that back three,” Neville said of starters Christian Makoun, Nico Figal and Leandro Gonzalez Pirez.
“I’m not going to take any risk with any [injured] players but we know [Tuesday’s] game is massive for us,” he said. “We’ll have a team that is full of confidence and belief. We want to keep this momentum going. We’re playing against a team that’s going through a difficult period, but when you look at their roster it should be a team in playoff position. They have great quality and experience.”
Miami beat Toronto 3-1 at home last month, but Neville said “that score line was probably slightly flattering for us because they did possess the ball quite well in that game.”
After a flurry of goals over seven games, Miami has scored just twice in the past three games. Although they won two of those games and tied one, they aim to get more chances and goals in the coming weeks.
Forward Gonzalo Higuain, who scored the lone goal against the Crew, and Neville both said the team needs to improve on its passes in the final third. Higuain said there are times he is open, and teammates don’t deliver passes to him.
But Neville isn’t quite as concerned about low-scoring games as he was midseason.
“Five or six weeks ago I thought we needed to score at least two, maybe three goals to win the games because we were conceding goals, but now we’ve got three clean sheets in a row and the goals on the other end have dried up a little bit,” he said. “But Gonzalo is right, we have been very careless in our final pass and movement in the final third and need to improve. But if you ask any coach, they would prefer to keep a clean sheet and win 1-nil than concede two or three goals and win the game.”