Co-owner David Beckham brings the biggest name. Inter Miami wants to become a top address in football in no time. There is money, a new stadium is being built, the conditions are excellent. Now only the sporting success is missing.
Miami (dpa) - There are worse jobs - also for footballers. Especially for a native of Berlin, one could also think of Jerome Kiesewetter's Hertha BSC training club these days.
His journey took him from Berlin via Stuttgart and Düsseldorf, and also for test training to the United States through the Ore Mountains. First El Paso, second American league. Then to Miami. To FC Inter, exactly, David Beckham's club.
The 44-year-old Briton is a co-owner and jet setter. "He is there every now and then, he also has a house here in Miami. But he is also a workhorse and you have the feeling that he is only traveling around the world," said Kiesewetter in a conversation with the German press -Agency.
Beckham himself is counting the days until it starts. "It's getting more and more real," he recently wrote on Instagram next to a selfie with a shirt in light pink - the defining color of the new franchise - from the stadium. The seats were still empty under a clear blue sky.
Shortly before the start of the season in Major League Soccer with the game on Monday night at Los Angeles FC, Beckham is giving himself a little family vacation in the mountains. Skiing in the Canadian luxury resort Whistler. Others are responsible for day-to-day work on the Fort Lauderdale site. The coach is 44-year-old Diego Alonso from Uruguay, once a professional in the Spanish league and as a coach winner of the North and Central American Champions League with FC Pachuca 2017 and FC Monterrey 2019.
Inter Miami is (still) unsuccessful in searching for sonorous European names - apart from Beckham. Most recently, the team strengthened with the Mexican international Rodolfo Pizarro. "It raises the quality of everyone again," said sports director Paul McDonough. Pizarro, like Coach Alonso, has already won the Champions League twice, most recently they got it together. "I'm just saying what everyone already knows: Inter Miami's first season will only be a success if they make it into the playoffs. No excuse," wrote a commentator on the MLS homepage.
Beckham is financially supported by the difficult Jorge Mas. As the "Miami Herald" once reported, it comes from one of the most prominent and wealthy Cuban-American families in Miami. These are people who don't wait to see what happens, Minnesota boss Adrian Heath said to the Inter owners. "They'll put their financial resources in the ring and make sure they get where they want to go as quickly as possible." And that's up there. "We want to play for the championship right in the first year, that's for sure and then make it into the Champions League and assert ourselves there," said Kiesewetter.
The new stadium is scheduled to be completed in two years. The Miami Freedom Park is to become a recreational destination, 58 hectares, parking areas, restaurants, shops, a public soccer field and the new arena, which is expected to hold 25,000 spectators. Until then, the game will be played in the former Fort Lauderdale stadium - 18,000 fans will fit in there, poshed up in white, pink, gray and black. A little color, PR, big investments and a new member of the MLS family is ready - Miami will also survive the legal dispute with Inter Milan, which insists on its naming rights.
"In the USA you can take a team from Las Vegas, move them and let them play in Miami. People accept that and support the team. In Germany something like that would be unimaginable," said Kiesewetter, who is currently also doing something like the " American Dream ". Youth player at Hertha, then with the second team of VfB Stuttgart before going to Fortuna Düsseldorf. At the beginning of 2016, Kiesewetter even played two international matches for the USA - coach of the American selection at that time: Jürgen Klinsmann.
Before he signed the contract in Miami, Kiesewetter had been with the second-class club from El Paso, previously without a club in Germany. At FC Erzgebirge Aue, he had kept himself fit and completed a trial training, but then injured himself. He's been in Miami for a few months now "and it feels like home," said the Berliner. No wonder at the workplace.
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