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The football publication is curiously dull, yet oddly irresistible. Even title is confusing. The Dear England title currently belongs to a hit play, an upcoming television program, and a open letter written by Gareth Southgate in 2021.

This version of Dear England isn’t officially related to any of those. It stands as an oddity in the Dear England Multiverse, a book about guidance: a classically dry elite football manager subject that Southgate adheres to relentlessly, using the words “leadership”, “guiding” or “leadership” at least 500 times across the book’s entirety.

Questions Posed

“What are leaders? What do leaders do? And what do leaders know?” he asks early on, establishing his position, but choosing not to explore “Why are leaders?”, topics probably reserved for a future volume.

Additionally, this publication features a notable absence at its core. It’s a venture in subtly confrontational self-defense, in nearly but not entirely expressing the real point, hopping nimbly from lingering grievance to unscabbed wound across a assortment of pie charts, corporate platitudes and digressions about Thomas Cromwell.

Immersion

Going through the book is like eavesdropping on your family members having a controlled but intensely emotional debate in the adjacent space while you’re striving to pay attention on a business seminar called “Numerous Justifications for My Ultimate Victory”. But it is also difficult to disengage, as the author keeps drifting near to an issue you genuinely want to hear about, before suddenly changing tack.

Disclosures

There are inevitably news headlines in books in this genre, explained by the rapt interest with the role of England manager. The most striking examples include: the manager resolved he was absolutely going to step down as England manager after spectators threw cups at him at the tournament; he came very close to forfeiting the game at mid-match against the Bulgarian team in 2019 after his players were racially abused; he invented the idea of set-piece coaches and everyone in the top division is now following his lead; he has now lost his enthusiasm for soccer, a shocking revelation thrown away in a brief section at the final part.

Managing England through a period of fury, aspiration, political ferment and pandemic restrictions was a harsh journey. The bruises are clearly still unhealed.

Generic Content

Otherwise, the content is saturated with an computer-generated word-sludge of standard management talk. Review editions of this publication were distributed with journalists under non-disclosure agreements ahead of publication, presumably out of fear someone might reveal that “tough talks can, by their very essence, be challenging”, that you should always consider the consequences, that guidance occurs where change meets empathy.

Sincere Expression

Readers will find however authentic sentiment within. Guiding England through a period of anger, hope, political ferment and confinement was a brutal ordeal. The scars are evidently still fresh, though presented in a terminology-heavy reinterpretation of the classic football manager story: why I was actually right about everything throughout.

Notable Cases

Even publication’s initial chapter, Trojan-horsed as gripping accounts of the deciding game of the European Championship, is entirely focused on how good Southgate really was at tactical substitutions (the big criticism of Southgate revolving around he wasn’t good at altering the lineup). Further on, he goes into extensive analysis about how he handled the Euros final of 2021 flawlessly – specifically the unsuccessful spot-kick decider – because he followed a predetermined process, which implies that bringing on young players in the closing stages to take the crucial kick of their careers was logical and accurate.

That approach was validated by a successful tiebreaker against the Swiss team in a subsequent competition after a game where England spent 120 minutes looking as if they were trying to wear a pullover the inside out. “Our dominance in that shootout was truly exhilarating,” the author notes, amid comparing the performance to elite military units eliminating Osama bin Laden. Goodness.

Withheld Details

When we come near to a revelation, he retreats from naming names or sharing the substance. We learn there were difficult England players who demanded more focus, maybe because they were spoilt during the beginning of their time in football. But as you anticipate hopefully, the author is already diverting into a topic titled The Culture Code, which asserts that instead of a collection of characteristics or ideals, organizational ethos is in fact something that is formed by, alas, please, no more.

Notable Sections

Included in the more compelling bits are when Southgate discusses about the incremental method of building mental toughness in the next generation, or how he tried to describe what it means to be English more clearly and more constructively than any public personality in the spotlight. Most impressively, there is a truly compelling narrative of that traumatic match in Sofia where England’s players of color were targeted with hatred (and afterwards protected robustly by their coach).

Genuine Ending

Perhaps the most sincere section {comes|arrives|appears