Ryan Shawcross looking to provide leadership for Inter Miami; assures he’s fully fit after recent injury spells
When Inter Miami CF announced the signing of former Stoke City captain Ryan Shawcross over the weekend, club leadership immediately spoke on Shawcross’ experience as a tone-setter that’ll be an asset for Inter Miami.
“Having someone with his experience and professionalism will help our team improve and reach for higher goals this year,” Chris Henderson, Inter Miami’s chief soccer officer and sporting director, said in a statement. “Ryan is going to be able to come here and be a leader, not only on the field, but his leadership will be seen with the young players and players coming through.”
After a 15-year senior career that’s included over 450 appearances across 14 years with Stoke City, the mentor role is one Shawcross embraces.
“As you get older, the younger lads lean on you for advice,” he said, “and it’s on you to set the standards that they train and play by. I’m an advocate of that.”
And Shawcross will have plenty of younger players to take under his wing at Inter Miami, with the club emphasizing youth development and progress with its academy heading into its second season in Major League Soccer.
That approach is one Shawcross said Inter Miami is wise to take and could see them going about it similarly to Manchester United, with new Inter Miami coach Phil Neville and club co-owner David Beckham products of the English club’s academy system.
“It would be silly for the ownership to not use that philosophy because it’s the philosophy of probably one of the greatest clubs that has ever been,” said Shawcross, who’s also a product of Manchester United’s academy and like Beckham and Neville, started his senior career with Manchester United. “If you want to have a successful first team, you have to have a successful academy.
“The DNA of Inter Miami, I’m sure, will be very similar to the DNA at Manchester United just because of the ownership of the club and then with Phil Neville coming in, he has a similar sort of philosophy.”
While Shawcross said he and Neville didn’t discuss Inter Miami’s tactical plans in great detail before he signed with the team, the 33-year-old center back found that Neville used tactics synonymous with Manchester United while watching the England women’s national team, where Neville coached for three years before joining Inter Miami.
“Just because of Phil’s bringing up in Manchester United, obviously they had the stamp of a Manchester United DNA — the high press, playing out of the back, playing attacking football through the lines [and] scoring goals,” Shawcross said. “They looked very similar to the tactics [Manchester] United play. I’m sure that’s something he’ll want to translate to Inter Miami.”
Shawcross assured that he’s returned to full fitness after being hit with the injury bug over the past 1 1/2 years, which has limited him to eight total club appearances over the past two seasons.
He broke his fibula during a preseason friendly in July 2019, with the injury keeping him out of gameplay for 4 1/2 months. After returning from the injury, Shawcross was hampered by groin and calf injuries throughout the 2019-20 season before it was put on pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shawcross returned to play after the season picked back up last June but was ruled out for the remainder of the season in July with two games left on the year.
He only made two English Football League Championship appearances for Stoke City during the 2020-21 season before transferring to Inter Miami.
“I probably rushed it back a bit,” Shawcross said about the fibula injury. “I’ve been fit. Obviously, the pandemic made the season a bit different. Trained pretty well for the last six months, just the game time probably hasn’t been where I wanted it to be. Fit and ready to go, and looking forward to getting out there.”
