The GIS Miami Campus was officially launched last week, as students began inaugural sessions for their MSc Sports Directorship programme at the iconic DRV PNK Stadium, the home of Inter Miami.
The event proved a huge success, with GIS, Inter Miami CF and several partners gathering to celebrate the launch of the first stadium in the Western Hemisphere to serve as a permanent university campus.
As part of their residential week, the students received a guest lecture from Phil Neville, Head Coach at the Major League Soccer (MLS) club. He discussed his career, what he’s learnt along the way and his uncompromised obsession with coaching.
Speaking exclusively to GIS, he said: “We as a family always thought that we needed many branches to our lives, my dad always used to say football is only a short life, make sure you prepare for injury, illness and obviously old age. At about 24 I did my B License; I just fell in love with coaching. The day I finished my career, I retired on the Thursday and I was employed on the Saturday as a coach.”
The former England Women’s Head Coach added: “I’ve learnt how to treat people, I’ve learnt how to communicate with people, and I’ve earnt how to be honest with people and myself.”
Inter Miami, who finished eleventh in the Eastern Conference in last season’s MLS, was founded four years ago in Fort Lauderdale, Florida by David Beckham, Neville’s former teammate at Manchester United. Since then, the club have qualified for soccer’s top division in North America and Canada, signing players such as Gonzalo Higuain and Blaise Matuidi from some of the top clubs in Europe.
Neville, who has been Head Coach at Inter Miami for over a year, has seen the potential and progression of football, or soccer, within the US and is determined to play his part in continuing this monumental surge of recent years. While the football landscape may differ in many ways across the Atlantic, the process, he says, remains very much the same – it’s all about fixation and focus.
Reflecting on his career so far, and how he’s got to where he is today, Neville said: “That first 12 months as a coach at Manchester United, I literally spent every minute of every day in the Manchester United training ground. We had beds there, I used to sleep there sometimes, because I was obsessed with learning every facet of football. That’s why I progressed - it was the obsession.”
