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    Man Utd icon Phil Neville ‘in advanced talks to land new manager job’ five months after Inter Miami sacking

    PHIL NEVILLE is in “advanced talks” to become Portland Timbers boss – five months after Inter Miami sacked the Manchester United legend.The ex-England defender is keen to return to the MLS and has also been linked with New England Revolution.
    Ex-England and Man Utd full-back Phil Neville is poised for an MLS boss returnCredit: Getty Images – Getty
    But The Athletic say Neville, 46, who managed the Lionesses from 2018-2021, is close to being named Portland coach.
    Miami supremo David Beckham axed his former Old Trafford team-mate in June after the ambitious club went bottom of the MLS Eastern Conference.
    Having taken over in 2021, Nev took Miami to the play-offs the next year.
    But ten defeats in 13 MLS games in 2023 cost him his job.
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    In his final season, Neville’s team were hit by injuries and a $2.3million (£1.9m) cut in allocation funds.
    Miami suffered that cash reduction after being fined $2m (£1.6m) for the club breaking pay and roster guidelines three years ago.
    Becks’ fledgling outfit were also saving funds for a summer spree that saw Barcelona icons Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba arrive.
    But Nev didn’t last long enough to manage those greats.
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    He has since admitted not expecting to be in charge when Messi came in.
    And indeed his successor Gerardo Martino had a far richer pedigree at the highest level of management.
    The Argentine bossed Barca as well as his home nation and Mexico.
    But Neville has also said: “Forget Messi, the results weren’t good enough the last month I was in the job and I knew that. That is the reason I left.”
    Soon after exiting Miami, Nev took on the assistant manager’s job with Canada for this year’s CONCACAF Nations League Final and Gold Cup. More

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    Luis Suarez ‘agrees emotional Lionel Messi reunion’ with Barcelona legends set for one last hurrah after free transfer

    LUIS SUAREZ has agreed to join Inter Miami to reunite with Lionel Messi, according to reports.The Uruguayan played with the superstar at Barcelona between 2014-20, where they won the Treble together in 2015.
    Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi could reunite at Inter MiamiCredit: AFP
    The pair became close friends and often take their families on holiday together.
    And now they could reunite in the twilight of their careers at David Beckham’s Inter Miami.
    Suarez has been in contact with the MLS club over a January move, according to Spanish outlet El Pais.
    The striker, 36, has been offered a one-year deal to link up with Messi and former Barca team-mates Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets.
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    Suarez is expected to travel to Miami next month to finalise the deal once his contract with Gremio expires.
    He has scored 22 goals in 46 games for the Brazilian club since joining last December.
    However he could decide to retire due to a knee injury which has plagued much of his Gremio career.
    Suarez shortened his Gremio contract by a year due to the ongoing problem, which he needs daily injections and special treatments to deal with.
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    Inter Miami finished second bottom in the Eastern Conference this year but Messi’s arrival had a big impact, with The Herons winning the Leagues Cup.
    Gerardo Martino also joined as manager midway through the season and won nine of his 22 games in charge. More

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    Lionel Messi hints at emotional transfer from Inter Miami after winning Ballon d’Or with ‘bitter taste’ still lingering

    LIONEL MESSI has hinted at a return to boyhood club Barcelona from Inter Miami after leaving with a “bitter taste” in 2021.The Argentine football icon revealed his emotion at the transfer after collecting his eighth Ballon d’Or on Monday night.
    Lionel Messi has hinted that he could make an emotional return to BarcelonaCredit: Getty
    Messi confirmed the news after collecting his eighth Ballon d’Or on Monday nightCredit: AP
    Due to Barcelona’s financial woes, Messi had to depart from the Nou Camp in 2021 as the club could not afford to renew his contract.
    The 36-year-old then headed to Paris Saint-Germain until the summer of 2023.
    Some fans speculated that the GOAT would go back to Barcelona but Messi chose to go to the MLS instead.
    But after winning football’s most prestigious award for the eighth time in Paris on Monday, Messi confirmed he wants to have a proper farewell with Barcelona fans.
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    He said: “There was a bitter taste when I left and I don’t like that. I’d like to change the way the story ended.
    “I deserve to say goodbye to the people that gave me so much joy. If it happens I’ll be very happy to be there of course.”
    The World Cup 2022 winner is Barcelona’s all-time leading goalscorer with 672 goals in 778 appearances during his 17-year spell at the club.
    And Barca president, Joan Laporta has reassured that the club will give their star player a warm welcome back.
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    Fans will also be pleased that two dates for Messi’s eagerly anticipated reunion have been leaked.
    Laporta revealed an official event for Messi will be held in June 2026 – when Camp Nou’s stadium renovations will be complete.
    Alternatively, his return could be even sooner, in November 2024, when the historic ground welcomes back the first team.
    For now, Messi will resume playing for Inter Miami and join the pre-season training ahead of their new MLS season which is set to kick off in February.
    Messi spent 17 years at Barcelona where he scored 672 goals in 778 appearancesCredit: AFP More

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    Lionel Messi Wins Eighth Ballon D’Or as Soccer’s Best Player

    Messi is the first M.L.S. player to win the award. Aitana Bonmatí of Spain won the women’s prize.The Ballon d’Or, the most prestigious individual soccer award of the year, rewards the best player over a 12-month period. But Lionel Messi essentially won it in just about a month late last year.Messi, 36, was awarded the prize on Monday for the eighth time, and the first time since he signed with Inter Miami of Major League Soccer in July. Aitana Bonmatí of Barcelona and the World Cup-winning Spanish national team won the women’s award for the first time.Messi’s exploits in Miami, as good as they were, did not earn him the award. Rather it was his performance in helping carry Argentina last December to its first World Cup since 1986. Just when it seemed that he would finish his career without lifting the cup, he helped his nation win the title with seven goals, including two in the final against France. He won the tournament’s most valuable player award as well.That performance more or less locked up the Ballon d’Or 11 months before it was handed to him. In the meantime, he left Paris St.-Germain for a contract with Miami that pays him more than $50 million a year, according to reports.When M.L.S. began play in 1996, the hope, frankly, was merely to survive in a football, baseball and basketball-obsessed country. Surely few thought that the world’s best player would be plying his trade in the United States by 2023.Messi earned the Ballon d’Or for his exploits at the World Cup in Qatar, not the Leagues Cup in Miami. Still, the award was a coup for M.L.S., which has already gained international exposure by signing him. Sales of Messi’s pink Inter jersey have skyrocketed worldwide, putting the league on the map in places it had been little noticed before.Messi’s first six Ballons d’Or came when he was playing for Barcelona, the club team he had represented since he was 13. When that club ran into financial problems, he tearfully left for the Qatar-financed P.S.G. Though he won one more Ballon d’Or there, his time was mostly unhappy, and it ended in a bitter divorce.Then it was on to Miami, where he hardly looked like a late-30-something playing out the string. He guided Inter to victory in the Leagues Cup, for Mexican and M.L.S. teams, with a tournament-leading 10 goals. But the team, which had been terrible before his arrival, was buried too deeply in the standings to make the M.L.S. Cup playoffs.Messi has pronounced himself happy in Miami, though “one never completely adapts to this climate,” he said in August.The pre-award debate centered on whether Messi’s amazing month at the World Cup should trump the fine yearlong play of the Norwegian striker Erling Haaland, who won just about every club trophy available with mighty Manchester City. Voters thought it did.Messi’s eighth Ballon d’Or is another positive tally in his long-running battle for best player of his generation with the Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo, who is second on the all-time list with five of the awards, which date to 1956. Ronaldo, 38, now seems unlikely to win any more, especially after signing a big-money contract with Al-Nassr in the unheralded Saudi league at the end of last year.Aitana Bonmatí scored three goals for Spain in the World Cup this year and won the tournament’s M.V.P. award.Jose Breton/Associated PressThis year’s Ballon d’Or awards, announced at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, cover performances from August 2022 to July 2023.Bonmatí, 25, a midfielder, won the women’s Ballon d’Or, after helping her club team, Barcelona, win Europe’s biggest tournament, the Champions League.She topped that with her performance in the World Cup, which technically took place outside the window for which players were judged, scoring three goals and winning the tournament’s M.V.P. award as Spain defeated England, 1-0, in the final in Sydney in August.Bonmatí has developed a reputation as a player who tirelessly seeks improvement, studying performance data, reading and working with her own fitness coach, nutritionist and psychologist. “I try to understand everything,” Bonmatí, the daughter of two lecturers in Catalan literature, told The New York Times in June. “I am a very curious person.”Her Spain and Barcelona teammate Alexia Putellas, winner of the last two Ballons d’Or, was injured for most of the year. More

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    Inter Miami copy Barcelona’s strict ‘Lionel Messi rule’ in training which all players must follow

    INTER MIAMI have copied Barcelona’s strict ‘Lionel Messi rule’ which all players must follow in training.The GOAT joined the MLS side this summer following his departure from Paris Saint-Germain.
    Inter Miami’s has copied Barcelona’s ‘Lionel Messi rule’ in trainingCredit: Reuters
    Since Messi’s arrival in July, he has lit up the MLS with Inter Miami – scoring 11 goals in 14 games.
    The 36-year-old has been the prize possession for the club. and led them to their first bit of silverware – the Leagues Cup trophy.
    But the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner was not able to secure his team an MLS Cup play-off spot as they finished the term in 14th place in the Eastern Conference.
    Teammate 19-year-old Edison Azcona has reflected on his time playing with Messi this season.
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    And the midfielder confessed to following a rule that Inter Miami players must abide by to ensure they protect their superstar.
    He explained how the team make sure they avoid injuring Messi during the training sessions.
    Azcona told Infobae: “Everyone understands that we are not going to try to hurt Messi.
    “One tries to defend, but they are a little more careful.
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    “We don’t let him play in the games we play among ourselves, we defend him, but with caution. Nobody gets into it very hard.”
    The MLS club are not the first team to follow this rule – Barcelona too had to protect their star man back in the day.
    The Argentine scored a record-breaking 672 goals in 778 games for the Catalan giants cementing his place among the greatest footballers of all time.
    Nice’s Jean-Clair Todibo played five times for Barcelona and revealed he was one of the players who followed the ‘Lionel Messi rule’ in training.
    Todibo told German outlet Bild: “We all knew that he couldn’t get injured.
    “Messi was defended very carefully in training.
    “I learned a lot from Messi and I even tackled him a few times, but I was careful not to hurt him.” More

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    How Lionel Messi Made a Pink Jersey Soccer’s Must-Have Item

    In the span of three months, the soccer superstar has made Inter Miami’s eye-catching jersey the hottest piece of sports merchandise on the planet.All of a sudden, after a single summer, the pink jersey is everywhere. It has become almost impossible to acquire, yet there it is, paradoxically, on the backs of thousands of fans thronging American stadiums, hanging from market stalls in Buenos Aires and Bangkok, a vivid flash on almost every field where children gather to play soccer in England.That the jersey has become, apparently overnight, the hottest piece of sports merchandise on the planet is a simple, capitalist equation: the result of an irresistible combination of one of the most recognizable and beloved athletes of his generation; a distinctive, exotic color; and the ruthless efficiency of textile factories in Southeast Asia.Somehow, though, few people saw it coming. Tor Southard was better placed than most, but even he was caught unaware. As Adidas’s senior director for soccer in North America, he had been receiving emails from colleagues for nearly a year asking if the company’s biggest star, Lionel Messi, would be joining Inter Miami, also a client of Adidas.As far as he knew, it was just a rumor. Like the rest of the planet, Southard learned it was true only on June 7, the day Messi announced his intentions in a rare interview with two Spanish news outlets.For many, the immediate question was the soccer one. Six months after winning the World Cup with Argentina, why was Messi, the finest player of his generation and arguably the best of all time, leaving the elite clubs and competitions of Europe to join a team that ranked among the worst in the comparative backwater of America’s top league, Major League Soccer?For Southard, and for Adidas, there was a rather more pressing matter. Within a couple of days of Messi’s announcement, the company had received almost 500,000 requests from stores and suppliers for jerseys in Miami’s soft, electric pink. It is a specific fabric and a specific shade: Pantone 1895C. “It’s not like it was white, and we had inventory we could repurpose,” Southard said.Even if they could not foresee quite what a phenomenon the jersey would become, and quite how many people would clamor to get their hands on one, Southard and his colleagues had some sense of what was about to happen.Adidas was going to need more of that fabric. A lot more.‘No. 1 priority’The Adidas flagship store in Manhattan. John Taggart for The New York TimesOn the day Messi announced he would sign for Inter Miami, Adidas had a stock of Inter Miami jerseys in stores and storage facilities around the United States. It did not last. The shirts sold out so quickly that Southard said it seemed the inventory simply “evaporated.”Getting the fabric to make more — and fast — was just the first step. Although Adidas would not start selling official Messi jerseys until his contract was formally signed on July 15, it placed orders for vast rolls of the pink fabric needed to make them within 24 hours of his interview on Spanish television in the first week of June.The risk, of course, was that the deal could still collapse. “It’s a trade-off you make for speed,” Southard said.In ordinary circumstances, retailers order jerseys as many as nine months in advance. Major sportswear brands, like Adidas and Nike, generally prefer to produce large batches of team gear, rather than manufacturing to meet demand, as fast fashion chains tend to do.Given the number of what the industry terms “chase buys” — a sudden influx of orders in unanticipated volumes — for Messi’s Inter Miami jersey, Adidas knew its usual playbook would not work.A lone Messi shirt left in a soccer shop outside Tokyo.Kosuke Okahara for The New York TimesIt had learned that from experience. In 2021, when Cristiano Ronaldo returned to Manchester United, one of the handful of retailers Adidas works with, Fanatics, asked for a million more jerseys. A year later, after Messi helped Argentina win the World Cup, Adidas had to produce and ship an extra 400,000 Argentine national team shirts in the span of three months.Getting pink jerseys bearing Messi’s name and No. 10 into the market, Southard said, immediately became Adidas’s “No. 1 priority, globally.”Frisco, Texas.Logan Riely/Getty ImagesTo streamline the process, the company sourced the pink, recycled polyester fabric for the jerseys as close as possible to the factories in Southeast Asia that would make them. Orders for other details like logos and crests were expedited at other facilities, sometimes leapfrogging the production of apparel for other Adidas teams. To cut down on shipping times, the first batches of the Messi jerseys were sent out in small shipments, almost as soon as they came off the production line.The frantic production effort worked. Initially, Adidas had told its retailers to begin selling jerseys with a promise of delivery by Oct. 15. But the first editions arrived in the United States by July 18. They were sent straight to Miami, where demand was highest.They sold out almost instantly.‘Everyone has a hookup’La Paz, Bolivia.Leonardo Fernandez/Getty ImagesOn a street corner in Miami’s wealthy Brickell neighborhood one evening last month, two young men had set up a pop-up Messi store, their racks groaning with Inter Miami jerseys in pink and an alternate version — black with pink trim — that the team wears on the road. This was the work of the imaginatively titled Messi Miami Shop.The name sounds official. The online store looks it, too. It sells two versions of the Messi jersey, as most sportswear manufacturers now do: a “player version” made with high-quality material and an athletic cut, and a “replica” designed for fans whose bodies might not have the precise dimensions of an elite athlete.The Messi Miami Shop is not, though, affiliated in any way with Messi, Inter Miami or Adidas. (It is, though, a shop.) Its jerseys had come, instead, from a contact in Thailand, purchased for $10 apiece. “This is Miami,” one of the sellers said. “Everyone has a hookup.” And a markup: The stall was selling the jerseys at $25 for a children’s edition and as much as $65 for an “authentic” inauthentic adult version of the team’s black jersey.The sellers, who declined to give their names for reasons that should be obvious, had sold around 30 in a couple of hours, they said. But they are not the only ones hustling.A few nights earlier, outside Exploria Stadium in Orlando, Fla., a different group of hawkers were doing their own brisk business in Messi jerseys. Messi was not playing that night — he missed several weeks of the season because of an injury — but Inter Miami was in town, and plenty of fans were prepared to pay $40 for a pink jersey bearing his name, even if it had shoddy stitching and was plucked from a backpack.Despite all of Adidas’s attempts to get its official Messi jerseys into stores as quickly as possible, the clamor for them — any version of them — has proved so great that counterfeits have flooded the global market to meet the shortfall.Though the company says it has now largely caught up with the backlog of orders, it has found that it is still selling jerseys far faster than it can produce them, and not just in the United States.Rio de Janeiro.Dado Galdieri for The New York TimesIn Buenos Aires, where Messi’s status as a national treasure was sealed by victory in the World Cup, there are pink jerseys for sale in store after store and kiosk after kiosk along Calle Florida, one of the Argentine capital’s teeming shopping streets, and in the stalls of the bustling San Telmo Market. At some vendors, the fakes go for about $50.In Europe, where tribal affiliations to local clubs run deep, Miami jerseys are suddenly commonplace. At a training session for elementary school children last month in Manchester, England, the usual concentration of Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool gear was flecked with a half dozen pink Inter Miami jerseys, each bearing Messi’s name.It is difficult to overstate the scale of demand. Official sales have surpassed every benchmark Adidas could have imagined, Southard said: more than the frenzy that accompanied David Beckham’s move to the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2007; beyond the rush prompted by Ronaldo’s return to Manchester United in 2021; beyond the clamor for Messi’s Argentina shirt in the aftermath of Qatar 2022.Inter Miami is now the best-selling Adidas soccer jersey in North America, ahead of all five of the storied European clubs that the brand traditionally regards as the crown jewels of its portfolio: Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich and Arsenal.Since July, Fanatics, which dominates sports apparel in the United States, has sold more Messi jerseys than for any other soccer player, and any athlete at all except the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts. No player, in any sport, has ever sold more jerseys on the site in the first 24 hours after switching teams than Messi did in July.The Adidas store in Manhattan.John Taggart for The New York TimesHis cinematic arrival in M.L.S. — with a late game-winning goal in his debut on July 22 — came too late to salvage Inter Miami’s season. The club will miss the playoffs, which start on Wednesday. Messi will not play in pink again until next year.But that has done little to quell his impact. Inter Miami’s games drew record crowds from the moment he arrived. The team’s ticket prices for next season have soared. Adidas is confident that it has enough of the next edition of Messi’s jersey — due out in February — in production to meet demand.For many fans and retailers, it cannot come a moment too soon. The jersey has become so coveted, so scarce, that even Beckham himself — one of the most famous soccer players of his generation, a worldwide celebrity and, as part-owner of Inter Miami, Messi’s boss — has found it hard to get hold of one.More than once, he has wanted to send a pink Messi jersey to a friend or an associate as a gift, only to be told that he will have to wait, just like everyone else.Alan Blinder More

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    Lionel Messi posts gushing Inter Miami tribute after final game as Wags Antonela and Victoria Beckham head out for lunch

    LIONEL MESSI posted a gushing message to Inter Miami after the final game of the season.Meanwhile, his wife went out for a girls lunch with none other than Victoria Beckham.
    Lionel Messi took to Instagram at the end of his first season with Inter MiamiCredit: AFP
    Messi wasted no time in making his mark in the MLSCredit: Getty
    Antonela Roccuzzo, second left, and Victoria Beckham, right, headed out for lunch in MiamiCredit: Instagram
    Messi, 36, joined the MLS side this summer following his release from Paris Saint-Germain.
    And in the three months since his July arrival on a two-and-a-half-year contract in Florida, Messi has inspired the club owned by David Beckham.
    The Argentine superstar scored an injury-time free-kick winner on his debut and then led the team to their first ever trophy, the Leagues Cup.
    In total he has 11 goals in 14 Inter Miami appearances and is unsurprisingly incredibly popular at the DRV PNK Stadium as his first season comes to an end.
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    And he headed to Instagram with a classy message.
    Messi wrote to his 489million followers: “Proud of all the team accomplished this season.
    “With the work and effort of everyone, we were able to win the @leaguescup clinching the first title in @opencup history, we made it to the finals of the Lamar Hunt U.S. @mls and were even fighting to get into the @intermiamicf, play-offs almost until the very last moment.
    “We stayed with all the good things and above all the desire to improve to be even more competitive next year.
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    “I would like to thank all the people of the club and the city of Miami for the support they always give us.
    “I’m sure we’ll continue to have amazing moments together as we have in the past few months.
    “A hug for everyone!”
    But after Inter Miami missed out on the play-offs, Messi could head out on loan briefly when the winter transfer window reopens.
    An emotional return to Barcelona could be on the cards while a Saudi side could try and lure the World Cup winner to the Middle East on a temporary deal before the 2024 MLS season gets underway in late February.
    While Messi and Co were in North Carolina to face Charlotte in their final MLS game of the season, his wife headed to her all-star lunch.
    Antonela Roccuzzo posed for photos with Victoria at their classy trip out in Miami.
    Antonela opted for a black number revealing her stomach while Posh Spice stunned in a full-length white dress and black heels.
    The glamorous pair, previously spotted together at Inter Miami matches, joined their mutual friend Isabela Grutman for the release of her new fashion range.
    The Argentine has scored 11 goals in 14 appearancesCredit: Reuters
    Inter Miami won the Leagues Cup, the first trophy in their historyCredit: Getty
    The pair dazzled while their husbands were in Charlotte for the final MLS match of the seasonCredit: Instagram
    They were out to support their friend’s fashion range launchCredit: Instagram More

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    Jack Wilshere tipped to be a Premier League boss as he’s in line for shock role in first managerial appointment

    JACK WILSHERE has the potential to become a Premier League manager one day, according to Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta.The former Gunners midfielder has been interviewed by the Colorado Rapids for the MLS side’s vacant head coach position.
    Jack Wilshere has entered the world of coaching at ArsenalCredit: Getty
    There is a link between the teams as the US club are owned by Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, who are the long-term owners of Arsenal.
    Wilshere, 31, only retired from playing last year and has had an impressive start to his coaching career, guiding the Arsenal Under-18s to the FA Youth Cup Final where they were beaten 5-1 at home by West Ham.
    Asked whether Wilshere has the making of being a top-level boss, Arteta said: “Yeah but way down the line, you don’t know when that is, it could be very soon.
    “He’s got the potential to do it, now he’s clear in his mind what he wants to do and the reason why he wants to do it, and I think it’s a big asset for the club to have him here.
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    “I’m really happy that Jack is part of the setup at Arsenal. I think he’s done really well.
    “I think he was really needed around the academy and the place, and these things are going to happen when people are doing well.
    “He’s going to get attraction, and then it’s going to come down to him to make the best decision for his career.”
    Wilshere played 197 times for Arsenal between 2008 and 2018, scoring 14 goals and assisting a further 30.
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    During his Gunners stay he also enjoyed loan stints with Bolton and Bournemouth.
    After leaving the Emirates he spent two seasons with West Ham, playing just 19 times.
    He finished his playing career with further spells at Bournemouth and Danish side AGF. More