Portland Timbers in final stages of hiring Phil Neville as next head coach

Phil Neville

The Portland Timbers are set to hire former England women's national team and Inter Miami coach Phil Neville as the club's next head coach.Getty Images

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The Portland Timbers are in the final stages of hiring Phil Neville as the club’s next head coach, a source confirmed to The Oregonian/OregonLive on Friday.

Tom Bogert of The Athletic was first to report the news.

Neville, 46, most recently coached as an assistant under John Herdman for the Canada men’s national team, previously leading MLS club Inter Miami as head coach for nearly three years until his firing in 2023. The England national played 10 seasons primarily as a fullback for Manchester United and eight for Everton in his professional career from 1994 to 2013, going on to coach the England women’s national team from 2018 to 2021.

A source told The Oregonian/OregonLive that Neville had multiple head coaching offers across MLS, and he is set to join the Timbers following the midseason firing of longtime coach Giovanni Savarese.

Neville was 31-41-11 as head coach at Inter Miami. A longtime friend of David Beckham dating back to their playing days, Neville took over in 2021 after the club received $2 million sanctions for violating MLS roster rules. He was fired early in the 2023 season as the club had the worst record in MLS, and Miami would soon hire Tata Martino in Neville’s place and bring in massive transfers in Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets, and Jordi Alba, among others.

Neville’s combative press conference with a local reporter in Miami raised eyebrows as well.

Prior to his being hired by the England FA, Neville came under fire for a series of sexist tweets posted in 2012, wherein he said women were too “busy making breakfast/getting kids ready/making the beds” to read his tweets and in another post joked that he “just battered the wife.”

Neville later apologized for the Tweets, saying they were “wrong then and wrong now.”

The Athletic reports that Portland is in talks to bring on Jason Kreis as an assistant under Neville, along with Miles Joseph, who coached the Timbers for the final stretch of the season following Savarese’s firing.

UPDATE (3:11 p.m.): The 107 Independent Supporters Trust and Timbers Army issued a statement calling for the Timbers to reconsider their forthcoming hire of Neville.

“The Portland Timbers are currently rebuilding a team on the pitch in addition to their ongoing efforts to rebuild trust with their fans and the community,” the statement reads. “We are deeply disappointed that the club has reportedly settled on a finalist for head coach who has a history of sexist public statements that run counter to our ethos as a club, city and supporters’ group, and who also lacks a proven track record as a manager. We urge the Timbers to reconsider this hire and reevaluate other candidates before finalizing a contract.”

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