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This football book is curiously uninspiring, yet curiously captivating. Its title causes confusion. The Dear England title already is used by a popular theatrical production, an forthcoming TV show, and a public letter penned by the manager in 2021.

This iteration of Dear England isn’t officially connected to any of those. It represents an peculiar entry in the Dear England Multiverse, a volume about management: a typically dull elite football manager theme that the author adheres to doggedly, relying on the words “leadership”, “leading” or “leadership” at least 500 times across 336 pages.

Questions Posed

“What defines a leader? What is the role of a leader? And what do leaders know?” Southgate inquires at the outset, establishing his argument, but declining to ask “When are leaders?”, questions presumably saved for a second book.

Additionally, this book contains a significant gap at its core. It’s an attempt in indirectly hostile personal vindication, in coming close without actually expressing the real point, skipping adeptly from unresolved issue to fresh pain across a series of pie charts, business clichés and references about 16th-century statesmen.

Reading Experience

Going through the book is like listening to your parents having a polite but deeply felt argument in the next room while you’re trying to focus on a corporate presentation titled “112 Reasons Why Naturally I Had the Last Laugh”. But it is also difficult to disengage, as Southgate keeps approaching to something you genuinely want to discover, before unexpectedly changing tack.

Insights

The book contains typically news headlines in works like these, such is the peeled-eyeball fascination with leading the national team. The most notable instances include: he resolved he was absolutely going to resign as England manager after supporters threw cups at him at the tournament; he nearly decided to withdrawing from the game at the interval against Bulgaria in 2019 after his team were racially abused; he pioneered the approach of specialist dead-ball trainers and everyone in the top division is now following his lead; he has now abandoned his love for football, a startling revelation briefly included in a brief section at the conclusion.

Leading England through a period of anger, optimism, turmoil and confinement was a harsh journey. The bruises are obviously still fresh.

Predictable Elements

In other sections, the content is overrun with an robotic word-sludge of generic leadership chat. Advanced copies of this book were provided with journalists under confidentiality clauses ahead of launch, presumably out of concern someone might reveal that “tough talks can, by their nature, be challenging”, that you should always consider the consequences, that guidance happens where transformation intersects with empathy.

Emotional Core

Readers will find however authentic feeling present. Managing England through a time of rage, optimism, political ferment and confinement was a harsh experience. The scars are obviously still unhealed, albeit presented in a buzzword-filled reinterpretation of the traditional leader narrative: demonstrating my accuracy about each issue throughout.

Detailed Instances

Even publication’s introductory section, Trojan-horsed as gripping recollections of the final of the tournament, is entirely focused on how good the manager actually was at player changes (the big common complaint being he wasn’t effective at making changes). Later, he goes into extensive analysis about how he oversaw the deciding game of 2021 impeccably – notably the failed penalty shootout – because he followed a established procedure, which must mean that introducing inexperienced squad members at the last moment to take the crucial shot of their lives was sensible and correct.

This was proved right by a successful shootout against the Swiss team at a later tournament after a match where England spent the full duration looking as if they were attempting to wear a pullover the inside out. “The control we exerted in that penalty decider was simply exciting,” he states, in between comparing the display to US Navy Seals killing a high-profile target. Dear me.

Withheld Details

When we do get close to a revelation, he backs away from specifying people or sharing the details. We learn there were problematic England players who required more focus, perhaps because they were indulged at the start of their careers. But as you anticipate expectantly, Southgate is already veering off into something named a leadership concept, which asserts that as opposed to a assemblage of characteristics or ideals, team environment is in fact an element that is created by, unfortunately, please, we’ve heard enough.

Notable Sections

Among the more compelling bits are when he explores about the incremental nature of developing mental toughness in the next generation, or how he tried to define what it means to be English more coherently and more helpfully than any other figure in the limelight. The standout section, there is a truly absorbing description of that traumatic match in the Bulgarian capital where England’s African heritage squad members were viciously abused (and subsequently supported vigorously by their manager).

Genuine Ending

Perhaps the most sincere part {comes|arrives|appears