It’s a cracking job, Gareth . . . why would you ever leave it?
GArEtH Southgate is not silly. If the country can get sick of Sir Alf ramsey, eventually it can get sick of him. Not any day soon, obviously. Southgate will lead England into the 2020 European Championship and probably beyond. the greater worry is that he may yet tire of us. He is a young manager — 48 in September — and men of his age like to be busy. When it goes well, international management almost becomes a part-time job.
In the last year or so, Southgate has been reshaping his England team. the way they play, the way they interact. He has been forging an identity and new paths, changing personnel, planning for the biggest tournament of his life. Once that is up and working — and it is now — there is less to do. He gets his players for a week here and there. He goes months without a game.
terry Venables thought international management was for older men because of the inactivity and thinking time. A coach with a full club career behind him would appreciate the slower pace, the careful strategic plotting for one big game, some months away. the young coach wants to be out on the training ground every morning and playing two matches a week. He craves action.
And yet think about Southgate now. About the challenge this World Cup has given him. Where can he get that anywhere else? Where can he test his philosophies against elite players and coaches, and where would he be afforded the time he will now get to develop this England team? this isn’t the impossible job for Southgate, this is a cracking one.
Given that Southgate’s employment at the fA dates back to August 2013, there are only six managers in the top four divisions who have been around longer. Wind forward to his first day in the England job, 27 September 2016, and there are only 34 with greater longevity — soon to be 33 when Antonio Conte is sacked by Chelsea. By comparison to his contemporaries, Southgate has got a steady position.
He has also got a job with room to breathe. Southgate and England have exceeded all expectations in this tournament, but even had they lost to Colombia at the first knockout stage, it would have done enough to secure another two years. there is no appetite for further upheaval at the fA, and a feeling that an inexperienced team are on the right track has pervaded this competition.
Compare that to, say, Chelsea, where first is first and second is, often, the Job Centre. Compare that to Manchester United, where David Moyes didn’t see out a full season and Louis van Gaal won the fA Cup and was sacked. And that is if Southgate could land an elite job. Now the upper echelons in English football are owned abroad, success with the England team might not count for as much as a title win at Porto.
the last two England managers to reach a tournament semi-final were Bobby robson and Venables. After those journeys the only clubs they managed in England were Crystal Palace, Middlesbrough, Leeds and Newcastle.
Yet the main reason the England job is made for Southgate is vocational.
AftEr so many years in the doldrums, this summer has reminded everyone connected with the national team — not least the players — that the biggest club in the country is a successful England. that it unites people — not those clowns in government, but normal people — like little else, and that to be at the helm of such a mission truly is the professional pinnacle.
‘You’re trying to affect things that are bigger than one result, one match,’ said Southgate, reflecting on why he first answered the call to be England’s Under 21 manager. ‘So I think you have a duty to serve and to try and improve things and make them as good as you can. to have the best possible effect, short, mid and long term with the decisions you make.’
No doubt that was the reason Joachim Low stayed on with Germany despite a hugely