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This football publication is oddly tedious, yet curiously captivating. Its title is confusing. Dear England already belongs to a hit play, an future TV show, and a open letter written by the manager in 2021.

This iteration of Dear England is not officially related to those. It stands as an oddity in the Dear England Multiverse, a volume about leadership: a typically dry elite football manager subject that Southgate follows doggedly, employing the words “leader”, “guiding” or “leadership” no fewer than 500 times across 336 pages.

Questions Posed

“What defines a leader? What actions do leaders take? What insights do leaders have?” the author questions at the outset, setting out his position, but stopping short to address “How are leaders?”, topics presumably reserved for a follow-up publication.

Beyond that, this book has a book-shaped hole in the middle. It’s a venture in passive-aggressive personal vindication, in nearly but not entirely saying the real point, skipping adeptly from lingering grievance to fresh pain across a series of pie charts, business clichés and discussions about 16th-century statesmen.

Reading Experience

Going through the book is like listening to your parents having a mannered but intensely emotional disagreement in the adjacent space while you’re striving to concentrate on a business seminar named “112 Reasons Why Naturally I Had the Last Laugh”. But it is also difficult to disengage, as Southgate keeps coming close to a topic you truly wish to hear about, before suddenly changing tack.

Insights

The book contains always controversial revelations in publications in this genre, due to the peeled-eyeball obsession with the role of England manager. The best examples include: Southgate decided he was absolutely going to quit as England manager after spectators tossed containers at him at the tournament; he almost chose to withdrawing from the game at the interval against the Bulgarian team in 2019 after his team were racially abused; he introduced the concept of set-piece coaches and everyone in the English football is now copying him; he has now misplaced his passion for the sport, a surprising revelation briefly included in a single paragraph at the end.

Managing England through a time of rage, optimism, turmoil and confinement was a brutal ordeal. The bruises are evidently still fresh.

Generic Content

Throughout much of the book, the narrative is overrun with an AI-style linguistic mush of generic management talk. Advanced copies of this book were distributed with reviewers under secrecy pacts prior to launch, presumably out of apprehension someone might reveal that “challenging discussions can, by their inherent quality, be challenging”, that you should always consider the consequences, that management takes place where evolution combines with compassion.

Genuine Feeling

Readers will find nevertheless real feeling present. Leading England through a period of rage, optimism, turmoil and lockdown was a brutal experience. The bruises are clearly still fresh, even if conveyed in a buzzword-filled reimagining of the standard football manager story: why I was actually right about each issue all along.

Specific Examples

Even book’s initial chapter, presented as exciting memories of the final of Euro 2024, is completely dedicated to how good Southgate really was at substitutes (the primary Southgate gripe being he wasn’t good at making changes). Later, he goes into great depth about how he handled the championship match of 2021 impeccably – notably the unsuccessful penalty shootout – because he adhered to a established procedure, which suggests that introducing inexperienced squad members very late to take the most important attempt of their careers was sensible and accurate.

This was proved right by a successful shootout against Switzerland in a subsequent competition after a match where England spent the entire match looking as if they were trying to wear a pullover the wrong way round. “Our dominance in that tiebreaker was truly exciting,” Southgate notes, while likening the performance to special forces eliminating Osama bin Laden. Dear me.

Avoided Revelations

When we do get close to a disclosure, he backs away from identifying individuals or providing the substance. We discover there were problematic England players who demanded more attention, perhaps because they were indulged during the beginning of their time in football. But as you anticipate eagerly, the author is already veering off into something named The Culture Code, which asserts that instead of a grouping of attributes or principles, team environment is in fact something that is formed by, alas, stop, no more.

Highlights

Within the more compelling parts are when the author explores about the piecemeal nature of developing fortitude in young people, or how he attempted to articulate national identity more coherently and more helpfully than any public personality in the limelight. Best of all, there is a really compelling description of that harrowing match in the Bulgarian capital where England’s players of color were targeted with hatred (and afterwards supported vigorously by their coach).

Sincere Finale

Perhaps the most sincere section {comes|arrives|appears