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This football publication is strangely tedious, yet strangely captivating. Its title causes confusion. Dear England currently is used by a successful theatrical production, an upcoming television program, and a public letter penned by the manager in 2021.

This version of Dear England isn’t formally related to any of those. It stands as an anomaly in the expanding Dear England universe, a book about guidance: a classically dry top-level coach subject that the author follows relentlessly, using the words “leader”, “guiding” or “leadership” at least 500 times across its 336-page length.

Questions Explored

“What are leaders? What do leaders do? What knowledge do leaders possess?” he asks in the opening, setting out his stall, but declining to explore “How are leaders?”, themes presumably saved for a follow-up publication.

Otherwise, this publication contains a book-shaped hole at its core. It’s a venture in passive-aggressive personal vindication, in almost-but-not-quite expressing the underlying truth, hopping nimbly from unsettled score to fresh pain across a collection of graphs, business clichés and digressions about 16th-century statesmen.

Engagement

Reading it is like eavesdropping on your parents having a mannered but intensely emotional argument in the adjacent space while you’re trying to focus on a corporate presentation called “Countless Explanations for My Eventual Success”. But it is also challenging to disengage, as Southgate keeps approaching to an issue you actually wish to hear about, before suddenly changing tack.

Disclosures

Readers will find always attention-grabbing disclosures in publications like these, such is the rapt obsession with England managerdom. The best ones include: Southgate resolved he was definitely going to step down as England manager after supporters hurled cups at him at the European Championship; he nearly decided to abandoning the game at half-time against Bulgaria in 2019 after his players were racially abused; he pioneered the approach of dedicated restart experts and the entire league in the Premier League is now following his lead; he has now abandoned his love for football, a startling revelation thrown away in a single paragraph at the final part.

Guiding England through a time of fury, aspiration, turmoil and lockdown was a harsh experience. The wounds are evidently still raw.

Generic Content

Throughout much of the book, the content is overrun with an AI-style word-sludge of generic management talk. Review editions of this publication were shared with critics under secrecy pacts prior to release, probably out of concern someone might leak that “challenging discussions can, by their very essence, be difficult”, that you should always look before you leap, that management occurs where transformation intersects with empathy.

Emotional Core

Readers will find however authentic emotion present. Leading England through a time of fury, hope, upheaval and lockdown was a harsh journey. The scars are clearly still raw, albeit conveyed in a terminology-heavy reimagining of the classic leader narrative: demonstrating my accuracy about all matters from the start.

Notable Cases

Even publication’s introductory section, disguised as exciting memories of the championship match of Euro 2024, is all about how good Southgate actually was at tactical substitutions (the major common complaint revolving around he was not successful at making changes). Further on, he explores great depth about how he managed the Euros final of 2021 perfectly – specifically the failed tiebreaker – because he followed a set protocol, which implies that throwing on young players at the last moment to take the biggest kick of their existence was sensible and right.

This was proved right by a winning penalty decider against Switzerland at a later tournament after a game where England spent the entire match looking as if they were striving to put on a jumper the wrong way round. “The control we exerted in that shootout was simply exciting,” Southgate states, while comparing the performance to special forces killing a notorious figure. Oh Gareth.

Avoided Revelations

On the occasions we do get close to a disclosure, he retreats from naming names or giving us the substance. We hear there were difficult England squad members who required more focus, maybe because they were indulged early in their time in football. But as you lean forward expectantly, Southgate is quickly shifting into a topic called The Culture Code, which asserts that rather than a grouping of characteristics or ideals, organizational ethos is in fact something that is developed by, gah, please, we’ve heard enough.

Highlights

Among the more compelling parts are when Southgate discusses about the gradual nature of fostering resilience in young people, or how he tried to define national identity more lucidly and more helpfully than any public personality in the public eye. Most impressively, there is a truly gripping description of that traumatic match in Sofia where England’s African heritage squad members were subjected to vile treatment (and subsequently protected robustly by their manager).

Heartfelt Conclusion

Maybe the most heartfelt section {comes|arrives|appears