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This soccer book is strangely tedious, yet strangely irresistible. Its title raises questions. Dear England currently names a hit theatrical production, an future TV show, and a open letter penned by the manager in 2021.

This version of Dear England is not officially tied to any of those. It stands as an anomaly in the Dear England Multiverse, a book about management: a typically dull elite football manager subject that Southgate sticks to relentlessly, using the words “leadership”, “leading” or “leadership” no fewer than 500 times across 336 pages.

Questions Raised

“What defines a leader? What do leaders do? What knowledge do leaders possess?” he asks early on, outlining his stall, but stopping short to ask “Why are leaders?”, topics presumably reserved for a future volume.

Otherwise, this book has a notable absence throughout. It’s an exercise in subtly confrontational self-justification, in coming close without actually expressing the actual thing, jumping skillfully from unresolved issue to fresh pain across a collection of graphs, business clichés and references about Thomas Cromwell.

Immersion

Reading it is like listening to your parents having a mannered but deeply felt argument in the adjacent space while you’re striving to pay attention on a corporate presentation called “Countless Explanations for My Eventual Success”. But it is also challenging to disengage, as Southgate keeps approaching to something you actually wish to learn about, before unexpectedly veering away.

Revelations

There are typically news headlines in works like these, explained by the peeled-eyeball fascination with England managerdom. The most notable instances include: he resolved he was absolutely going to quit as England manager after supporters tossed containers at him at the tournament; he came very close to abandoning the game at the interval against the Bulgarian team in 2019 after his players were subjected to racism; he invented the approach of dedicated restart experts and everyone in the Premier League is now following his lead; he has now lost his love for the sport, a shocking revelation briefly included in a single paragraph at the end.

Managing England through a period of anger, hope, political ferment and lockdown was a brutal journey. The bruises are evidently still raw.

Predictable Elements

In other sections, the text is flooded with an robotic linguistic mush of standard management talk. Copies of this publication were provided with critics under confidentiality clauses ahead of launch, probably out of concern someone might reveal that “tough talks can, by their very essence, be tough”, that you should always look before you leap, that management occurs where change intersects with understanding.

Genuine Feeling

Readers will find however authentic emotion here. Guiding England through a period of rage, hope, upheaval and pandemic restrictions was a grueling journey. The bruises are clearly still fresh, albeit expressed in a terminology-heavy reinvention of the traditional leader narrative: how my decisions were correct about everything throughout.

Notable Cases

The book’s initial chapter, presented as gripping recollections of the final of the tournament, is completely dedicated to how successful the manager actually was at player changes (the big Southgate gripe centering on he wasn’t good at altering the lineup). Subsequently, he explores extensive analysis about how he handled the championship match of 2021 flawlessly – particularly the unsuccessful penalty shootout – because he adhered to a set protocol, which implies that throwing on inexperienced squad members at the last moment to take the biggest shot of their careers was reasonable and accurate.

That approach was confirmed by a victorious penalty decider against Switzerland four years later after a match where England spent the full duration looking as if they were striving to don a sweater the backwards. “Our commanding performance in that tiebreaker was absolutely thrilling,” the author writes, while comparing the performance to US Navy Seals killing Osama bin Laden. Goodness.

Avoided Revelations

On the occasions we approach to a insight, Southgate withdraws from identifying individuals or providing the juice. We hear there were difficult England individuals who required more consideration, maybe because they were indulged during the beginning of their careers. But as you lean forward expectantly, Southgate is already diverting into an area named a leadership concept, which claims that instead of a grouping of attributes or principles, organizational ethos is in fact an element that is developed by, gah, please, no more.

Strengths

Within the more compelling parts are when the author discusses about the incremental method of fostering mental toughness in the next generation, or how he attempted to describe Englishness more lucidly and more constructively than any public personality in the spotlight. The standout section, there is a truly absorbing account of that harrowing match in the Bulgarian capital where England’s players of color were targeted with hatred (and later supported forcefully by their coach).

Sincere Finale

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