After The Athletic published an interview with Inter Miami manager Phil Neville, the club banned the publication of their media day event. The interview with Neville included criticism of the lack of a finite playoff structure a week before the regular season began. The most interesting note, however, was Neville’s support for promotion and relegation in Major League Soccer.
Inter Miami banned Pablo Iglesias Maurer and Felipe Cárdenas from the club’s media festivities. However, the two writers for The Athletic stood by their reports and the story.
In fact, the original story included an editor’s note with a comment from Inter Miami. The club wanted to ensure that pro/rel sentiments and criticisms of a playoff structure were entirely Neville’s personal opinion, not the club’s.
However, Maurer said on Twitter that the club were not happy with the content and timing of the interview with Phil Neville.
The MLS season begins on February 25 and The Athletic published the interview with the Inter Miami coach on February 19.
Inter Miami Targets The Athletic Ahead of Playoff Format Launch
Since the story broke, MLS has finally reached a conclusion on a revised playoff structure. It’s a far cry from the seven teams per conference a season ago.
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This season, there is a play-in game for the eight and nine seeds in each conference. Then the first round of the competition is a best-of-three series, which is rarely done in soccer. Those games cannot be resolved by draw. Then the conference semifinals, conference finals, and MLS Cup are all single-elimination games.
In total, 18 of the 29 teams in the league in the 2023 season will make the playoffs, even if four of those teams are in a wild card matchup in the first round of the playoffs.
Even then, this announcement comes just four days before the start of the season. Neville says that the delay makes the league look unprofessional.
Of course, Neville also expected to rise and fall. That seems unlikely given the risk of owners spending hundreds of millions on franchises.
Photo: IMAGO / ZUMA Wire
