Chance to end difficult season on high for david beckham’s inter miami

David Beckham’s first season as a Major League Soccer owner wasn’t supposed to be like this. With six years of legal wrangling out of the way, the former England captain surely imagined

himself soaking up some South Florida sunshine while cheering on his new Inter Miami franchise. A global pandemic, however, had other ideas. Beckham, 45, has been stuck in the UK and forced

to watch Miami from afar. Worse still, they have failed to live up to the billing of their celebrated figurehead — and some of the star names they have brought in. In a horribly fragmented

season, Inter, coached by the former Valencia and Uruguay striker Diego Alonso, lost their first five games, including a trio of defeats at the MLS is Back tournament — the league’s version

of Project Restart — in July. Despite the subsequent arrivals from Juventus of Blaise Matuidi, 33, the French World Cup-winning midfielder, and Gonzalo Higuaín, 32, the former Real Madrid

and Argentina striker, the results and performances continued to disappoint. Advertisement Yet, with the odds stacked against them, Alonso’s side remained in touching distance of the

play-offs (hardly an achievement considering that the top ten of 14 teams in the Eastern Conference qualify) and with other results falling in their favour, Miami triumphed over FC

Cincinnati on a final day made even more dramatic as the match was played amid the swirling wind and heavy rain of Storm Eta. Tomorrow they face fellow MLS newcomers Nashville, aiming to

extend a season which, on more than one occasion, has looked dead and buried before bursting back into life. Considering everything that has gone before, getting this far is a success,

albeit a small one. Beckham and his ownership group may desire more style and panache yet this team have at least displayed the kind of fighting spirit which was drilled into Beckham while

playing under Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United. Alonso, who rose to managerial prominence working in Mexico with Pachuca and Monterrey, has managed to galvanise a group of players that

have the ability to continue their run, although no one is expecting the five wins in this knockout phase of the season which would take them all the way to lifting the MLS Cup at the first

attempt. “We have seen what has happened this year but we won’t use that as an excuse,” said Alonso, whose coaching staff includes Anthony Pulis, the former Portsmouth and Stoke City

midfielder and son of Tony, the new Sheffield Wednesday manager. “There have been some difficulties but we take it as a challenge. We have achieved our goal.“ Advertisement While Higuaín,

one of the highest earners in MLS with a salary of about $7 million (£5.2m) a year, has cut a frustrated figure — managing as many red cards (one) as goals in his nine games — the driving

force of Alonso’s team has been the Scottish winger Lewis Morgan. Higuain arrived amid much fanfare but has ony managed one goal in nine games USA TODAY SPORTS The former Celtic and

Sunderland midfielder, 24, tops the scoring and assist charts for Inter and will want a strong end to the season knowing Scotland manager Steve Clarke has been keeping an eye on his progress

with next summer’s European Championship in mind. Matuidi has bolstered the midfield although the club’s other celebrated star, the Mexico midfielder Rodolfo Pizarro, has failed to justify

the hype. The 26-year-old was set to miss the Nashville trip after playing for Mexico in Austria this week, although with MLS suddenly deciding to charter flights for international players

in order to help them avoid quarantining on return, Pizarro is available providing he does not test positive for Covid-19. Infections are on the rise in Florida and though this match does

not appear to be in jeopardy, trying to establish a new club in the middle of a pandemic hasn’t been easy. Advertisement “This is my first experience of playing in an expansion team,” Wil

Trapp, the United States midfielder, said. “We have had to suffer in many ways but we have moved through it as a group. “We wanted to make the play-offs and now we have done that, the

question is what can we go and do? It’s a brand new season in our minds. These games are unpredictable.” Fighting for attention in a fickle and saturated sporting landscape like Miami can be

problematic, so free-flowing football allied with a generous splash of superstardom on the pitch is needed to maintain interest. Yet a strong, core fanbase is developing — the 2,703 allowed

to stand in the howling wind for the Cincinnati match did so with commendable vigour — and should continue to grow once stadiums are fully open again. “With time, confidence and the good

footballers we have, there is a promising future ahead,“ Alonso said. Advertisement For now, a strong play-off run will be trumpeted as a real triumph and leave their famous figurehead with

the broadest of smiles — albeit while watching from a few thousand miles away.