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The soccer book is strangely tedious, yet oddly compelling. Its title causes confusion. The Dear England title already names a hit theatrical production, an upcoming TV show, and a public letter penned by Gareth Southgate in 2021.

This iteration of Dear England isn’t formally related to any of those. It stands as an peculiar entry in the expanding Dear England universe, a book about management: a classically uninspiring elite football manager theme that the author follows doggedly, relying on the words “leader”, “guiding” or “management” no fewer than 500 times across the book’s entirety.

Questions Explored

“Who are the leaders? What do leaders do? What knowledge do leaders possess?” the author questions in the opening, outlining his stall, but choosing not to explore “When are leaders?”, topics presumably reserved for a future volume.

Additionally, this publication features a notable absence in the middle. It’s an attempt in passive-aggressive self-justification, in nearly but not entirely expressing the actual thing, jumping skillfully from lingering grievance to unscabbed wound across a series of pie charts, management jargon and discussions about historical figures.

Immersion

Engaging with the text is like listening to your family members having a controlled but intensely emotional disagreement in the next room while you’re striving to pay attention on a corporate presentation called “Numerous Justifications for My Ultimate Victory”. But it is also challenging to stop reading, as the author keeps coming close to something you truly desire to hear about, before unexpectedly shifting focus.

Revelations

There are typically news headlines in books of this nature, explained by the peeled-eyeball obsession with England managerdom. The most notable instances are: the manager resolved he was definitely going to resign as England manager after supporters tossed cups at him at the tournament; he almost chose to abandoning the game at half-time against the Bulgarian team in 2019 after his players were racially abused; he pioneered the approach of dedicated restart experts and the entire league in the top division is now following his lead; he has now lost his passion for the sport, a surprising admission casually mentioned in a short passage at the end.

Leading England through a era of fury, optimism, political ferment and confinement was a grueling experience. The wounds are obviously still fresh.

Commonplace Material

In other sections, the narrative is overrun with an computer-generated word-sludge of commonplace management talk. Advanced copies of this publication were shared with reviewers under non-disclosure agreements before release, presumably out of apprehension someone might disclose that “challenging discussions can, by their very essence, be difficult”, that you should always look before you leap, that management happens where transformation combines with empathy.

Emotional Core

There is however real sentiment within. Leading England through a era of rage, optimism, political ferment and pandemic restrictions was a brutal journey. The wounds are clearly still raw, even if conveyed in a buzzword-filled reinterpretation of the classic coach story: demonstrating my accuracy about each issue throughout.

Detailed Instances

Even publication’s introductory section, Trojan-horsed as thrilling recollections of the championship match of Euro 2024, is entirely focused on how successful the manager actually was at substitutes (the big Southgate gripe being he was not good at making changes). Further on, he explores extensive analysis about how he managed the championship match of 2021 perfectly – specifically the losing spot-kick decider – because he followed a established procedure, which must mean that introducing youthful talents at the last moment to take the crucial shot of their existence was logical and correct.

This was validated by a victorious shootout against the Swiss team at a later tournament after a match where England spent the entire match looking as if they were striving to put on a jumper the backwards. “Our commanding performance in that shootout was simply exciting,” he notes, in between likening the performance to elite military units killing Osama bin Laden. Goodness.

Missed Opportunities

On the occasions we approach to a disclosure, Southgate retreats from naming names or giving us the details. We learn there were problematic England individuals who required more focus, perhaps because they were indulged during the beginning of their time in football. But as you expect expectantly, Southgate is already shifting into something called a leadership concept, which claims that as opposed to a assemblage of attributes or values, organizational ethos is in fact something that is formed by, gah, please, no more.

Highlights

Included in the better sections are when he explores about the incremental process of developing mental toughness in young people, or how he attempted to articulate Englishness more clearly and more helpfully than anyone else in the public eye. Most impressively, there is a genuinely absorbing account of that harrowing evening in Sofia where England’s players of color were viciously abused (and subsequently defended robustly by their manager).

Heartfelt Conclusion

Possibly the most emotional segment {comes|arrives|appears