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This football publication is curiously tedious, yet strangely captivating. Even title causes confusion. The Dear England title already is used by a popular theatrical production, an upcoming TV show, and a national address written by the manager in 2021.

This iteration of Dear England is not formally related to any of those. It stands as an anomaly in the expanding Dear England universe, a book about leadership: a typically dull top-level coach trope that the author adheres to doggedly, relying on the words “leader”, “leading” or “leadership” no fewer than 500 times across 336 pages.

Themes Posed

“What are leaders? What actions do leaders take? What insights do leaders have?” Southgate inquires early on, setting out his position, but declining to ask “When are leaders?”, questions probably set aside for a second book.

Beyond that, this publication has a book-shaped hole in the middle. It’s an attempt in passive-aggressive self-justification, in almost-but-not-quite expressing the real point, skipping nimbly from lingering grievance to raw emotion across a series of pie charts, business clichés and discussions about 16th-century statesmen.

Reading Experience

Going through the book is like overhearing your parents having a mannered but deeply felt disagreement in the nearby area while you’re trying to concentrate on a professional workshop titled “Numerous Justifications for My Ultimate Victory”. But it is also impossible to stop reading, as the author keeps approaching to an issue you truly wish to learn about, before unexpectedly shifting focus.

Disclosures

There are typically attention-grabbing disclosures in works in this genre, such is the intense obsession with leading the national team. The most notable instances include: he resolved he was absolutely going to quit as England manager after fans hurled cups at him at the Euros; he nearly decided to abandoning the game at mid-match against the Bulgarian team in 2019 after his players were racially abused; he invented the idea of dedicated restart experts and the entire league in the English football is now adopting his methods; he has now lost his enthusiasm for the sport, a shocking admission briefly included in a short passage at the final part.

Guiding England through a era of anger, optimism, upheaval and lockdown was a brutal experience. The bruises are clearly still fresh.

Predictable Elements

Otherwise, the text is flooded with an robotic word-sludge of commonplace leadership chat. Review editions of this book were distributed with journalists under confidentiality clauses before publication, presumably out of fear someone might leak that “difficult conversations can, by their very essence, be tough”, that you should always look before you leap, that guidance takes place where change intersects with understanding.

Emotional Core

There is nonetheless authentic sentiment within. Managing England through a period of rage, aspiration, upheaval and confinement was a brutal experience. The scars are evidently still fresh, though expressed in a terminology-heavy reimagining of the traditional football manager story: demonstrating my accuracy about everything all along.

Notable Cases

Even book’s opening passage, presented as thrilling accounts of the championship match of the tournament, is completely dedicated to how good the manager in fact was at substitutes (the big Southgate gripe centering on he was not successful at substitutes). Subsequently, he delves into significant detail about how he handled the Euros final of 2021 flawlessly – notably the unsuccessful spot-kick decider – because he adhered to a set protocol, which implies that introducing youthful talents at the last moment to take the biggest shot of their existence was sensible and right.

This was validated by a winning penalty decider against Switzerland in a subsequent competition after a fixture where England spent the entire match looking as if they were trying to put on a jumper the wrong way round. “The control we exerted in that penalty decider was simply exciting,” Southgate writes, in between comparing the performance to elite military units neutralizing Osama bin Laden. Dear me.

Missed Opportunities

On the occasions we approach to a insight, Southgate backs away from naming names or giving us the juice. We hear there were problematic England squad members who required more consideration, perhaps because they were indulged during the beginning of their careers. But as you lean forward eagerly, he is already veering off into an area named a leadership concept, which asserts that rather than a grouping of characteristics or principles, organizational ethos is in fact something that is created by, unfortunately, stop, we’ve heard enough.

Highlights

Within the more compelling parts are when Southgate explores about the piecemeal process of building resilience in the next generation, or how he tried to define Englishness more lucidly and more positively than any public personality in the public eye. Best of all, there is a genuinely absorbing narrative of that harrowing match in the Bulgarian capital where England’s players of color were subjected to vile treatment (and subsequently supported vigorously by their manager).

Genuine Ending

Perhaps the most emotional part {comes|arrives|appears