, SPAIN - MARCH 10: coach Santiago Solari of Real Madrid during the La Liga Santander match between Real Valladolid v Real Madrid on March 10, 2019 (Photo by David S. Bustamante/Soccrates/Getty Images)

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As the expansion team gradually builds its roster, Inter Miami is poised to name Santiago Solari as the head coach. The Real Madrid man will implement a clear style and inspire hope.

Santiago Solari, Real Madrid coach until March of this year, is set to lead Inter Miami when the team begins MLS play in 2020.

Just last month, Inter Miami co-owner Jorge Mas announced at the MLS All-Star Game in Orlando that the team had come close to naming a manager. Mas specified that Inter Miami’s first manager would be one who has played and coached at the highest level.

Solari has coached the Argentina national team as well as at Real Madrid. He started coaching at Real Madrid at the youth level. He then moved to the reserves, competing in Segunda Division B. After first serving as the caretaker manager of the first team, he took over in 2018. He was fired on March 11, 2019. He also played at the highest level. As a midfielder, he shared some seasons on the pitch with Inter Miami co-owner David Beckham at Real.

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Mas emphasized that team ownership and management would install a head coach ready for a long-term commitment. He spoke of the coach leaving his fingerprints on Inter Miami.

Coaching at Real Madrid, Solari demonstrated an aptitude for fashioning formation schemes to match his personnel. During his tenure then as now, Real Madrid have been extremely successful exploiting a 4-3-3 shape that allows control in the central midfield and dynamic attacking play across the frontline. It is also, incidentally, the formation that David Silva, who has reportedly been recently recruited for Inter Miami, has flourished in and played most effectively for his current club, Manchester City.

So if Inter Miami makes good on signing both Silva and Solari, they are very much moving in the right direction to be one of the most competitive expansion teams to debut in MLS. Silva and Solari demonstrate similar playing styles, so they would easily and instinctively understand each other

As midfielders, they emphasized seizing every passing opportunity with outstanding accuracy. They also favored the attacking aspects of the midfield role, with their creativity, guile, and attacking nous crucial aspects of their game.

Other than Silva, who is yet to be signed, Inter Miami’s gradually growing roster is heavy on midfielders. And with Solari at the helm, a midfielder himself stemming from the Spanish, possession-based style, having such players fill out the team is vital.

With fellow expansion club Nashville SC, they will select up to five players in the expansion draft set November 19 this year. The hope is they can bolster the remainder of the squad there, as well as through further offseason signings and the SuperDraft.

But for now, Inter Miami is heading in the right direction. They now have a coach, a style, a star player, and, most crucially, a hope for the future.