MY GRANDAD WAS A MARINE. ENGLAND HAS BEEN MY LIFE. I’M READY FOR THIS

Rebel Southgate relaxed as the big day dawns

GARETH Southgate once divided the world into rebels and conformists. He was a conformist, he admitted in his autobiography. Not any more.

The man who will lead England in a tournament for the first time tonight is the most radical manager of the England team for more than two decades. More so than either of the foreign appointments, Sven Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello; more so than Glenn Hoddle, whose philosophy embraced both three at the back and faith healing.

Falsely portrayed as an FA yes man when he succeeded Sam Allardyce, Southgate has gone about reversing years of conservatism: from rigid quartets of defenders, to balls chased forlornly down channels; from rampant paranoia in remote outposts, to players treated like naughty schoolboys and confined to barracks.

Timing is all. Hoddle succeeded Terry Venables who had already effected significant change. Southgate took over a group of players still shell-shocked from the Iceland debacle and desperate for fresh ideas and direction after the caution of Roy Hodgson. He has delivered both. Few England supporters expected to be excited by their team again, but the positivity around this campaign confounds. It stems, not from a series of scintillating performances, but from a bold, young manager with a plan, and the commitment to see it through.

Asked whether he is still a conformist, Southgate thought, briefly. ‘I think I’ve got braver as I’ve got older,’ he said. Southgate is 47.

England have been here before, of course. Bags of optimism, not a ball kicked. If matches were won in front of microphones, England would be among the favourites.

Southgate talks a wonderful game. Eloquent, insightful, with a clear vision of how England should, and can, play. It’s a pity the football has to come along and, potentially, spoil it. England are notoriously slow starters and Tunisia can be feisty opponents, particularly with a squad boosted by newly converted French nationals.

One look at the group games so far tells its own tale. What price would you have been quoted on Spain, Portugal, Germany, Argentina and Brazil all being without a win after their first games? Tunisia might be every bit as problematic as Iceland, or Mexico.

There may come a point, then, when Southgate needs to be articulate in another language entirely. Much has been made of preparing the players to deal with intensifying pressure, overcoming bad memories and recent history, to deal with the emotion of biennial suffering.

Yet what of the manager? Hodgson, arguably the most experienced English football man, sat almost frozen as the last tournament game slipped away against Iceland in 2016. Steve McClaren dithered in a qualification decider against Croatia, and delayed making a pragmatic defensive substitution until after England had conceded a fateful third. The sophisticate Capello was reduced to imploring his players to go long, to chase a win at Wembley.

Southgate, just as much as his players, must be prepared for wildly varying narratives against Tunisia and to react under pressure. They could be harder to break down than is fondly imagined, they could lead, England could begin poorly. The talk has been of players needing to be prepared, but what of Southgate? What prepares him for the biggest event of his managerial career?

‘About 35 years in football,’ he said. ‘You draw on all the experiences from playing, coaching and life. I don’t think anything I can face in the next few weeks can be any more difficult than what I have faced already. I feel much more relaxed coaching than I did playing — which probably tells you something about my ability as a player.

‘So it is another game of football, on a pitch the same size as these boys have played on all their lives and we have to prepare them that way. And yes, it’s also a very proud moment. My family are incredibly patriotic. My grandad was a Royal Marine. I’ve always been brought up with England being a core part of what we stood for and my life.

‘To have played for England in major tournaments and now to manage them is a huge honour. But my focus can’t be that I’m just chuffed to be here.’

Just before 9pm, local time, Southgate will deliver the last words his players will hear before taking the field. Churchillian speeches are expected by the English. Maybe they would have got one from Southgate’s grandfather, Arthur George Toll. His grandson, however, is a product of his time.

‘I am conscious that, when I was a player, there were moments before the game when I thought, “All the manager can do now is f*** it up for me and put me off my game”, because I was ready and I didn’t want to hear much more,’ he added. ‘And I think these boys are ready. We tried to put as much tactical information as we could into them in the early part of the week, so today’s session was about enjoyment and feeling the ball.

‘For me, coaching is about allowing others to be as good as they can be. We have lads that are so exciting. I want them to go into this tournament, really go for it, be as good as they can be and not go away and think, “I wish I’d been a bit braver and tried something . . . ”. We are not going to get everything right over the next three weeks — we haven’t got it right over the first three — but the feeling is we are going in a good direction and that will continue if we play the way these boys can.’

The message was important. That f***, too. Nobody could remember an England manager so comfortable in his own skin that he could let slip a top-end swear word and not feel embarrassed, or worried that he had offended. Nobody from the FA felt the need to jump in and clarify either. This grown-up thing he has started is clearly paying off.

Southgate will hope his passage through a first finals game is as smooth as that of one of his predecessors, Hoddle, also against Tunisia in 1998. First goal, Alan Shearer after 42 minutes, second Paul Scholes on 89; a nice and steady 2-0. Since then, England have only won the opening game of a tournament on a single occasion, against Paraguay in 2006.

‘The first objective is to qualify,’ said Southgate. ‘We would love that to be in the first two games. But we have to be prepared that it might be the 94th minute of the third game. Whatever it takes, we’ve got to be ready — whether it’s the quality of our play, the quality of our defending, the desire to pull together in moments of adversity, we’ve got to show all the qualities needed.’

Starting with bravery and a refusal to conform to the narratives of England failures past. Southgate is ready for that now and he will hope his players are, too.