Southgate strikes right balance but furore has tested him to the limit
Sterling-Gomez episode cannot fail to change something in the team’s dynamic, says Sam Wallace
As Gareth Southgate climbed the stairs for his private meeting with Joe Gomez and his family in the aftermath of the Wembley booing for the Liverpool man on Thursday night, the England manager could have reflected on the job’s eternal capacity to create conflicts like no other.
His predecessors over the 1,000 games in the history of the England team found themselves pulled by different forces in different eras: the meddling of Football Association selection committees, as well as the politics and attitudes of that organisation, although in recent years that has changed. The occasional dysfunction of the FA is one thing, but in recent generations the greater pressure brought to bear on the England manager has been from the players: their missteps, their shortcomings, their power.
The greatest influence now rests with them, as opposed to the 156-yearold governing body that once ruled supreme over the game. It needed a man such as Southgate to comprehend the young footballer – rich, talented, sometimes indulged, sometimes exploited, and often bewildered at the challenges beyond the pitch. Southgate instinctively understood the diversity of the 21st-century England footballer and how race, generational politics and family background could shape him.
Like all the best teachers, with Southgate there is no ego, no touchline posturing. It has been the secret of his success, through Russia 2018 and guiding his team past the racism directed at them in the Euro 2020 qualifying campaign – and then came the Gomez-Raheem Sterling episode.
Throughout, Southgate has been at pains to defend Sterling, too. “I love all my players,” he declared on Tuesday. That was when you knew it was serious. Also, that he was unprepared to discuss the exact nature of Sterling’s actions. For all the professionals snorting at the fuss at what they have imagined were a few bad punches and a headlock, the refusal of Southgate to downplay the actions of the Manchester City man should be a clue.
“I’m incredibly close to all of the players and they are a very tight unit,” Southgate said after the game against Montenegro. He had spoken to Sterling, he said, and he joked for the second time about how managers had to accept players would be “less enamoured” of them at times. “It [the one-game ban] is not something I take any great enjoyment from, because you want everybody to be happy,” he said. “But the reality of being a leader is that keeping everybody happy is impossible. You just have to make sure the team is ready for the game.”
In short, Southgate has found disciplining Sterling hard. This was an unprecedented event that required unprecedented measures. Southgate has tended against the outright condemnation of Sterling. He had sought to minimise the player’s public discomfort while also trying to demonstrate to Gomez that the matter was being taken seriously.
Why? The impression this week is not simply because Sterling represents one of the strongest hopes that Southgate has of being successful at Euro 2020. Southgate has no track record for being that cynical. Rather, he can see that the team, and chiefly their manager, has a responsibility of care for the player. What Sterling did in the canteen at St George’s Park on Monday shocked a lot of people – including his manager, who learnt of it second hand. Then it was up to Southgate to try to rehabilitate, although that has to be done against the backdrop of Gomez’s understandably raw emotions.
These are the challenges of the England manager of 2019, one who has taken a route very different from some of his authoritarian predecessors. There were others who had an emotional intelligence, too. Bobby Robson coaxed Paul Gascoigne through his outpouring of sadness and disappointment in 1990. Graham Taylor was a kind man, who sought to be fair and empathetic.
Southgate has placed that approach at the forefront of his management. His players are much more racially diverse, and they are as likely to be abused over the colour of their skin through the phone in their pocket as the crowd in the stands. Yet the Gomez-Sterling stand-off is difficult because the offender is a young black man who has been subject to prejudices himself. One who has conquered much of that and yet is still capable of a serious error of judgment.
How does Southgate protect Sterling from his own worst excesses and yet still demonstrate to Gomez that he cares as much about him? How does he keep the team on track despite all that has happened? By Thursday night, he was clinging to the things he had seen: the tweets from Sterling condemning the booing of Gomez, the unity he perceived in the squad. “The team I’m seeing socialise and train together,” he said. “It’s incredible.”
Yet the events of this week cannot fail to shift something in this team’s dynamic. They will always be there in the mind of Gomez and among every member of the squad, who will each have their own view on how fair the outcome was. There is one person who need not feel conflicted at all: Sterling, who will be eternally grateful for his manager’s support and will wish to repay it in full. As for Southgate, he will know that every England manager’s strategy is eventually tested to the limit, and this was his week.