This is the fourth part of the 90min Smart Choices award series presented by Continental Tires. Check back every day to see new prizes.
Inter Miami head coach Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino led his team to the best regular season in Major League Soccer history and is MLS Manager of the Year 2024.
The 74 points collected in 34 games are the most by an MLS team, surpassing the New England Revolution’s 73 points in 2021. Martino also made history by lifting his second trophy as Miami coach at the Supporters’ Shield 2024 after the League Cup triumph in August. 2023.
Even though Martino works with the deepest and most talented team in MLS, he still had to manage everyone’s minutes along the way and work through several long-term injuries to key players to keep Miami atop the standings.
Martino was already one of the best head coaches in MLS after his incredible two years with Atlanta United during the club’s first two seasons as an expansion team in 2017 and 2018. After lifting the title 2018 MLS Cup with Atlanta, Martino returned to the American league five years later in search of more glory with Miami.
So far, he has delivered two trophies in Miami and is on the verge of delivering a third in the MLS Cup later this year. But it has not been without difficulties and players unavailable for a multitude of reasons.
Of course, any manager can win with Lionel Messi in his squad. However, Martino can’t play him every game, as he is 37 years old and more susceptible to injury in the twilight of his career. The same can be said of Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba and Luis Suárez, who want to play every game possible.
This is where Martino steps in. If he had allowed his former Barcelona players to play as many minutes as possible, Miami would not have won the Penyistes Shield or broken the single-season points record. Martino has proven to be a great coach at club level who knows when to rest players to get the best out of them.
In addition to managing the minutes of his star players, Martino has also had to keep the players on his roster happy and feel included in the team. That goes for players like Leo Campana, Noah Allen, David Ruiz, Franco Negri and Robert Taylor, who have all played a key role in Miami’s success in 2024.
Long-term injuries to Nicolás Freire and Facundo Farías spelled trouble for Martino’s squad, but he still managed to find a way around it to keep Miami at the top of the table. At the start of the season, Martino was extremely short on centre-backs. So he improvised by playing Busquets in the backline, which has worked quite well given his elite passing range which helps build up from the back.
Martino usually goes with his 4-3-3 system for matches, but has shown tactical flexibility given the opposition and the home side. At home, the 4-3-3 setup is usually a given, but on the road he sometimes rolls with a 3-4-3 formation to be a little safer at the back.
