With any football club, it’s essential to look towards the future. In Inter Miami’s case, having a large contingent of U-23 players signals the club’s intent to have a lasting core that can grow as the club attempts to find its footing in the league.
Before Inter Miami’s first team was assembled, there was an academy.
Club president and co-owner David Beckham made sure that South Florida’s young up and coming talent had a world-class place to train and hone their skills as they take the steps to become a professional soccer player.
This emphasis on ‘culture’ and team development extends to the first team as well. Although many believed that Inter Miami could go the LA Galaxy route, signing every star player that was available, General Manager Paul McDonough took his lessons learned during his time with Atlanta United and applied it to his new post at Inter Miami.
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In an interview with Sports Illustrated’s Planet Futbol, McDonough spoke about his roster-building strategy and how crucial it is to have a mixture of not only experience but some youth as well:
"“I think it’s important to have young, but I think in our market we need to have some older players that can handle the pressure much more than the young ones can right away.”"
As an expansion side, it is very easy to slip into mediocrity if the roster isn’t built to last. In Inter Miami’s case, the focus on veteran savvy and more importantly, youth, is a calculated effort on McDonough’s part to keep a core set of players together in order to challenge for silverware in the future.
A total of twelve U23 players are on this roster, with standouts including Scottish international Lewis Morgan, the South American cohort that consists of DP Matias Pellegrini, Julian Carranza, Christian Makoun and Andres Reyes, and a slew of American internationals that see George Acosta, Robbie Robinson, and Dylan Nealis enter the fold. Inter Miami have a core group of young players to build upon for years to come.
With a flurry of U-23 internationals on this roster, there’s not a better coach to further their development and win trophies than with manager Diego Alonso. It’s been touched on before, but the 45-year-old Uruguayan is perhaps the man best-equipped to handle the development of these young players.
At Pachuca, Alonso fostered an environment where talents like Hirving Lozano, Rodolfo Pizarro, who followed Alonso to Miami, and Victor Guzman received their first-team debuts. Already, the Uruguayan has had an under-23 player start for him in both the LAFC and D.C. United matches in Robbie Robinson and Lewis Morgan. The seamless inclusions of Inter Miami’s U23s will only help the club going forward.
With Alonso’s impressive resume of bringing through young players into the first team and McDonough’s footballing philosophy of mixing youth with steady veteran leadership, it is only a matter of time until the fruits of their labor start to flourish. And Inter Miami will be the benefactors.