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This football book is oddly tedious, yet strangely irresistible. Its title raises questions. The Dear England title already is used by a hit theatrical production, an upcoming TV show, and a public letter penned by the manager in 2021.

This iteration of Dear England isn’t formally tied to any of those. It stands as an peculiar entry in the expanding Dear England universe, a volume about guidance: a traditionally dry elite football manager theme that Southgate adheres to relentlessly, employing the words “leader”, “leading” or “leadership” a minimum of 500 times across the book’s entirety.

Inquiries Explored

“What defines a leader? What do leaders do? What knowledge do leaders possess?” the author questions early on, setting out his stall, but declining to address “How are leaders?”, themes probably saved for a follow-up publication.

Additionally, this book contains a notable absence in the middle. It’s an attempt in subtly confrontational self-defense, in nearly but not entirely expressing the real point, jumping skillfully from lingering grievance to unscabbed wound across a collection of graphs, business clichés and digressions about 16th-century statesmen.

Engagement

Reading it is like overhearing your parents having a mannered but profoundly personal disagreement in the adjacent space while you’re striving to pay attention on a corporate presentation named “Countless Explanations for My Eventual Success”. But it is also challenging to put down, as the author keeps coming close to something you genuinely want to learn about, before abruptly veering away.

Disclosures

There are typically controversial revelations in books in this genre, explained by the rapt interest with the role of England manager. The best examples are: he made up his mind he was certainly going to resign as England manager after spectators threw beer glasses at him at the tournament; he came very close to withdrawing from the game at half-time against Bulgaria in 2019 after his squad members were targeted with slurs; he invented the idea of set-piece coaches and the entire league in the Premier League is now copying him; he has now misplaced his enthusiasm for football, a shocking confession thrown away in a short passage at the conclusion.

Leading England through a period of fury, aspiration, political ferment and pandemic restrictions was a harsh experience. The wounds are evidently still fresh.

Predictable Elements

In other sections, the text is flooded with an robotic linguistic mush of standard guidance discourse. Copies of this book were distributed with reviewers under secrecy pacts before release, probably out of apprehension someone might leak that “tough talks can, by their very essence, be challenging”, that you should always consider the consequences, that management occurs where change intersects with compassion.

Sincere Expression

Readers will find nevertheless genuine emotion present. Leading England through a era of fury, hope, turmoil and lockdown was a brutal journey. The bruises are clearly still unhealed, though presented in a buzzword-filled reinterpretation of the standard coach story: why I was actually right about everything all along.

Detailed Instances

Even book’s opening passage, Trojan-horsed as exciting recollections of the championship match of Euro 2024, is entirely focused on how good the manager actually was at player changes (the big criticism of Southgate revolving around he wasn’t successful at altering the lineup). Further on, he delves into significant detail about how he oversaw the Euros final of 2021 flawlessly – specifically the unsuccessful spot-kick decider – because he followed a set protocol, which must mean that bringing on inexperienced squad members in the closing stages to take the most important kick of their existence was logical and correct.

That approach was validated by a winning penalty decider against Switzerland in a subsequent competition after a fixture where England spent 120 minutes looking as if they were trying to wear a pullover the backwards. “The control we exerted in that tiebreaker was truly thrilling,” he states, in between equating the performance to US Navy Seals neutralizing a notorious figure. Dear me.

Withheld Details

On the occasions we approach to a insight, he withdraws from identifying individuals or sharing the substance. We hear there were problematic England individuals who insisted on more focus, possibly because they were spoilt at the start of their time in football. But as you expect hopefully, he is already shifting into an area titled The Culture Code, which claims that rather than a grouping of characteristics or values, team environment is in fact an element that is created by, gah, stop, no more.

Notable Sections

Within the more compelling sections are when he discusses about the piecemeal method of developing fortitude in young people, or how he sought to describe Englishness more clearly and more helpfully than any public personality in the limelight. Most impressively, there is a truly gripping narrative of that traumatic evening in the Bulgarian capital where England’s African heritage squad members were viciously abused (and afterwards protected forcefully by their manager).

Heartfelt Conclusion

Maybe the most sincere segment {comes|arrives|appears