Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino confirmed as Inter Miami head coach

Inter Miami have announced that Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino will take over as the team’s head coach, ending weeks of speculation about the identity of Phi Neville’s successor.

The former Barcelona and Argentina manager has coached some of the most illustrious names in world football and will soon be reunited with Lionel Messi and Sergio Busquets in MLS.

“I’m very excited to join a big club like Inter Miami and I know together we can accomplish many great things,” Martino said in a statement.

“The club has the necessary infrastructure to be a major competitor in the region and I believe that with everyone’s hard work and commitment we can get there.”

However for all the fanfare around Inter Miami’s incomings, the reality on the pitch is cause for concern. Miami sit bottom of the Eastern Conference and have lost all seven of their last seven games.

Tata Martino teams coached

The 60-year-old coach has an extensive career in football spanning five decades. During his playing career he featured more than 500 times for hometown team Newell’s Old Boys, which happens to be the club where Messi’s prodigious talents were first identified.

After his retirement in 1996 Martino soon moved into management and took over at Argentine side Brown de Arrecifes in 1998. He left at the end of that year and began working his way up the managerial ladder to the very peak of the game.

In his 25-year career to date, Martino has taken charge of 13 teams: Brown de Arrecifes, Platense, Instituto, Libertad, Cerro Porteno, Colon, Libertad, Paraguay (national team), Newell’s Old Boys, Barcelona, Argentina (national team), Atlanta United FC, Mexico (national team).

He left his most recent post, the Mexican national team, after a disappointing group stage exit in the 2022 World Cup.

Tato Martino’s Barcelona links

Martino’s career as a player was define by his time with Newell’s Old Boys, where he became the club’s record appearance-maker. His affinity with the Rosario team continued as a manager and he took over at Newell’s in 2012.

In his second season in charge he led them to the Argentinian league title, alerting the attention of some of the world’s biggest clubs.

He was confirmed as Barcelona manager in July 2013, taking over a team that included not only Messi and Busquets, but also Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta, Neymar and countless other global stars.

But despite the huge talent at his disposal, Martino failed to get the best out of a team who had finished the previous season with an astonishing 100 points. He left the club at the end of the 2013/14 season and returned to his homeland to take charge of the national team.

Speaking in 2014, Martino reflected on his struggles with the Catalan giants.

“I didn’t make any mark on Barcelona,” Martino admitted. “It was a bubble in my career in terms of what I did as a coach.”

When asked how he had improved Lionel Messi’s performances at Camp Noue, Martino replied: “Nothing. Nothing at all. Not to him or to Barça.”

Inter Miami will hope that their new head coach has a little more success this time around.