An Exercise in Indirectly Hostile Self-Defense
This football publication is strangely uninspiring, yet curiously compelling. Its title causes confusion. The Dear England title already is used by a popular theatrical production, an upcoming television program, and a national address written by the manager in 2021.
This version of Dear England isn’t officially connected to those. It exists as an anomaly in the expanding Dear England universe, a volume about leadership: a classically dry elite football manager theme that the author follows persistently, employing the words “leader”, “leading” or “leadership” a minimum of 500 times across 336 pages.
Questions Explored
“What defines a leader? What is the role of a leader? And what do leaders know?” Southgate inquires early on, setting out his position, but declining to explore “How are leaders?”, questions likely saved for a future volume.
Otherwise, this book features a notable absence in the middle. It’s an exercise in indirectly hostile self-defense, in coming close without actually expressing the real point, skipping nimbly from unresolved issue to unscabbed wound across a series of pie charts, business clichés and digressions about 16th-century statesmen.
Engagement
Reading it is like overhearing your parents having a controlled but profoundly personal disagreement in the adjacent space while you’re trying to concentrate on a corporate presentation called “Countless Explanations for My Eventual Success”. But it is also difficult to stop reading, as Southgate keeps approaching to an issue you genuinely wish to hear about, before abruptly changing tack.
Insights
There are typically news headlines in books of this nature, explained by the rapt interest with leading the national team. The most notable ones encompass: Southgate made up his mind he was definitely going to resign as England manager after supporters threw containers at him at the Euros; he almost chose to forfeiting the game at mid-match against the Bulgarian team in 2019 after his squad members were subjected to racism; he pioneered the idea of specialist dead-ball trainers and everyone in the Premier League is now following his lead; he has now misplaced his enthusiasm for the sport, a startling confession briefly included in a brief section at the end.
Managing England through a era of rage, optimism, political ferment and confinement was a brutal experience. The bruises are obviously still fresh.
Predictable Elements
In other sections, the narrative is saturated with an robotic verbal clutter of commonplace management talk. Copies of this publication were shared with critics under secrecy pacts ahead of publication, presumably out of apprehension someone might reveal that “tough talks can, by their very essence, be challenging”, that you should always think before you act, that management occurs where change intersects with compassion.
Genuine Feeling
Readers will find nevertheless authentic sentiment present. Leading England through a period of fury, optimism, turmoil and pandemic restrictions was a brutal journey. The bruises are evidently still unhealed, albeit expressed in a terminology-heavy reimagining of the traditional leader theme: demonstrating my accuracy about each issue throughout.
Notable Cases
Even book’s introductory section, disguised as thrilling memories of the final of Euro 2024, is entirely focused on how good he really was at player changes (the big criticism of Southgate revolving around he was not effective at altering the lineup). Further on, he goes into great depth about how he oversaw the Euros final of 2021 flawlessly – notably the losing spot-kick decider – because he followed a set protocol, which must mean that bringing on young players very late to take the most important attempt of their careers was reasonable and right.
This was validated by a winning tiebreaker against the Swiss team in a subsequent competition after a match where England spent the full duration looking as if they were striving to wear a pullover the wrong way round. “Our dominance in that penalty decider was simply exhilarating,” he states, while likening the display to US Navy Seals killing a high-profile target. Oh Gareth.
Avoided Revelations
When we approach to a revelation, he backs away from naming names or providing the juice. We hear there were challenging England squad members who insisted on more focus, possibly because they were indulged early in their careers. But as you lean forward expectantly, Southgate is already diverting into an area named The Culture Code, which states that rather than a assemblage of qualities or principles, organizational ethos is in fact something that is created by, gah, enough, we’ve heard enough.
Notable Sections
Within the more compelling parts are when Southgate explores about the gradual nature of building fortitude in the next generation, or how he tried to describe what it means to be English more clearly and more helpfully than any other figure in the limelight. Most impressively, there is a truly gripping narrative of that traumatic night in Sofia where England’s black players were subjected to vile treatment (and afterwards supported robustly by their leader).
Heartfelt Conclusion
Maybe the most heartfelt section {comes|arrives|appears
