Phil Neville in disagreement with MLS Extreme Hardship roster rule
The Inter Miami coach said Monday that a few Fort Lauderdale CF players would have been in contention to start Wednesday if MLS regulations permitted
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Safe to say Phil Neville is not a huge fan of one MLS rule in its current form.
Inter Miami is facing a lineup dilemma as it heads into Wednesday night’s home game at Drv Pnk Stadium with Nashville SC. Two of the South Florida team’s three starting centerbacks will be unavailable after Leandro Gonzalez Pirez and Nicolas Figal were carded in last Friday’s 4-0 defeat to the New York Red Bulls, and natural replacements Ryan Shawcross and Ventura Alvarado are also out due to injuries.
That means Inter Miami is short on central defenders, an issue the side looked into possibly resolving by tapping into Major League Soccer’s “Extreme Hardship” rule. The roster regulation states that teams can temporarily add players to their squads if they have fewer than 16 outfield players or less than two goalkeepers available.
Inter Miami has more than that, however. As such, the Herons cannot acquire players that Neville name-dropped on Monday like 2021 draft pick Aime Mabika, son Harvey Neville, Modesto Mendez, or Noah Allen from sister team Fort Lauderdale CF.
“You talk about developing your own players, developing your own system, developing your own academy kids, I think this is definitely something that maybe we need to look at as in MLS,” said the Inter Miami manager. “When you have a USL team that are all your players, surely there has got to be some kind of pathway for them into the senior team. I say that from the fact that surely that is what we want as a country and as a football league. We want to produce our own players.
“… Ultimately, a rule that we have is blocking the progress of probably two or three young players to maybe start an MLS game on Wednesday, which I think is something that we maybe as a league need to look at because we want to give young players opportunities and this football club wants to produce young players.”
Neville may have a point, but for now he is going to have to get creative for how to replace Gonzalez Pirez and Figal. It is possible the Englishman uses players like Brek Shea and Kelvin Leerdam out of position and next to centerback Christian Makoun in order to maintain the 5-2-3 formation that has proven largely effective since late July.
Another scenario could be going with a different tactical setup that does not force “square pegs into round holes.”
“We need to get the rights players in the right position, and sometimes that means a system change,” said Neville. “We would love to continue with the three (central defenders). It is working really well. The players are comfortable with it, but ultimately we do not have three centerbacks at this moment in time that can play.
“Ultimately, we might have to adapt our system a little bit to make sure that we get the right players in the right positions.”