THE HUMBLE ONE
How Phil Neville became an unlikely star of the World Cup
Phil Neville was standing in a back corridor of the Stade de lyon, attempting to speak about his england team in the face of a particularly officious grey- blazered FiFA representative.
‘Please! Please!’ he asked her. ‘Just two minutes!’ The formal World Cup semi-final pre-match press conference had just taken place — two days before the game, to Neville’s bemusement — and he wanted to extend the discussion in a way which would make it fresh for the British press on matchday morning.
FiFA do not like this kind of thing. The official complained so noisily it almost became a commotion. But Neville talked on implacably, leaving when he had answered the final question put to him, seven minutes later.
here, in essence, is what england’s manager has brought in this tournament: politeness, deference and yet an unflinching refusal to be diverted from the path he wants to tread.
Three of the other four candidates shortlisted for the job when he got it are thought to have had concerns about the media scrutiny they would face, four months after his predecessor Mark Sampson had been sacked in the eye of a media storm. Neville has commanded the spotlight like no other manager at the Women’s World Cup.
it seemed an unlikely outcome when he was appointed, 18 months ago. Not just because of the 2012 tweets which immediately came to light — ‘Morning men!’ he stated in one, later suggesting that women would be too busy with domestic chores at that time of day — but because of his defensiveness when he was reminded that he had never managed and did not apply for the job.
The unexpected part of Neville has been the entire absence of that buttoned-up self- consciousness you see in the men’s managerial realm. he has spoken colourfully and entirely off-the-cuff, never seeking to filter the unmitigated enthusiasm and curiosity he first displayed when his boss, Baroness Sue Campbell, coldcalled him and asked him to apply for the role, after his named had cropped up at a social event.
‘i was speaking to see whether he would apply for the role,’ said Campbell, the FA’s head of women’s football. ‘We must have talked for an hour-and-ahalf and i put the phone down and i just looked up and said, “That is who i’m looking for.”’
Gary Neville has as hinted in the past his brother rother displays a more deft emotional nal touch than himself mor Tracey, their sister. ‘he’s the most easy-going of the three of us,’ he said in his autobiography while Tracey has said: ‘Philip was always ys the mediator.’
But their assessments sessbrother of their brother do not capture the th appealing, l sometimes chaotic, capacity of the individual in question to hurl himself at the job in hand. At valencia, manager Nuno espirito Santo, who hired Neville as his assistant, called him ‘Tranquil Phil’ because of his ultra-positive, ultra-enthusiastic approach to the role — but suggested he relax more.
Neville learned Spanish, taking daily lessons with his wife Julie, and was so excited by the idea of taking up the job that he accepted it without even consulting his family.
it has been the same with england. his technical staff — Bev Priestman, Mark Mason, Geraint Twose, Alex Scott and emma Allsop — joked in an interview with Sportsmail before the tournament that he was ‘ a nightmare’, because of his attention to detail. The WhatsApp groups he established to keep up to speed with wit his players, monit monitoring their perfo performances and fitness, have be been a running jo joke. The comedic element is never far away. his World Cup h haircut was ‘a d disaster’, he ad admitted and his off-the- cuff com comments can take him h anywhere. ‘ Grab it with both arms, b both th l legs, all your body,’ was his message to the players before the semi-final.
The humour only works because it is underpinned by an immense discipline, running through all that the team do. A source describes how, on one overseas trip, the team bus was pulling away from a training base when Neville spotted that a water bottle had been left on the pitch. The bus was stopped and he insisted that the individual who had left it return to collect it.
Dress codes are sacrosanct — a throw-back to Sir Alex Ferguson’s ways.
Nikita Parris hinted at the intensity of the training sessions when she said that Neville is photographed in the winning sides when two teams of the squad’s players are picked to play each other. Captain Steph houghton describes receiving a dressing down after failing to perform in the first half of a match against Brazil in the She Believes Cup. There has also been a capacity these past four weeks — again, uncommon in football managers — to instigate discussion about emotion, including the acute sense of grief that Fran Kirby and Carly Telford were feeling about the loss of their mothers after the victory against Argentina. it seemed significant when Neville referenced his father, Neville Neville, in passing, early in the tournament. Neville Snr died suddenly in Australia two years ago, while watching Tracey’s england netball team compete in the World Cup. You sensed the england manager would have given the world for him to have seen this campaign. You also sense a tinge of regret that, as of this week, no call of support had come in from Ferguson. Neville has been asked about that twice. his response each time was more grimace than smile.
Another regret for the 42-year-old may be his tactical change in the semi-final when he broke up the previously effective lucy Bronze/Parris axis in the 2-1 defeat by the USA. he will certainly be searching his soul about that.
‘ he’s a learner,’ Campbell said. ‘he’s constantly asking questions. he asked me, “Could you set it for me to go and see people who’ve been really successful in other sports, so i can go listen and learn?”
‘That’s the sign of a great coach. Someone who is not arrogant and doesn’t assume they have all the answers.’