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This soccer publication is strangely uninspiring, yet curiously captivating. Its title is confusing. The Dear England title currently is used by a popular play, an upcoming TV show, and a open letter written by the manager in 2021.

This version of Dear England is not formally connected to any of those. It stands as an anomaly in the Dear England Multiverse, a volume about leadership: a traditionally dry top-level coach theme that Southgate adheres to relentlessly, relying on the words “leader”, “guiding” or “management” a minimum of 500 times across the book’s entirety.

Inquiries Raised

“What defines a leader? What do leaders do? What insights do leaders have?” the author questions in the opening, outlining his stall, but choosing not to address “Why are leaders?”, questions presumably reserved for a second book.

Beyond that, this book contains a notable absence throughout. It’s an exercise in indirectly hostile self-justification, in almost-but-not-quite expressing the underlying truth, skipping nimbly from lingering grievance to raw emotion across a collection of pie charts, management jargon and discussions about 16th-century statesmen.

Reading Experience

Going through the book is like overhearing your family members having a polite but profoundly personal debate in the adjacent space while you’re striving to pay attention on a business seminar titled “Numerous Justifications for My Ultimate Victory”. But it is also impossible to put down, as the author keeps coming close to an issue you truly desire to hear about, before suddenly changing tack.

Revelations

The book contains typically news headlines in books in this genre, such is the rapt obsession with leading the national team. The best examples are: the manager resolved he was definitely going to step down as England manager after supporters tossed beer glasses at him at the European Championship; he nearly decided to abandoning the game at the interval against the Bulgarian team in 2019 after his squad members were targeted with slurs; he introduced the approach of dedicated restart experts and all teams in the top division is now copying him; he has now abandoned his passion for football, a shocking confession thrown away in a short passage at the final part.

Managing England through a period of anger, hope, upheaval and confinement was a harsh journey. The scars are clearly still raw.

Predictable Elements

Otherwise, the text is overrun with an robotic linguistic mush of standard guidance discourse. Advanced copies of this book were distributed with journalists under confidentiality clauses ahead of launch, probably out of concern someone might leak that “challenging discussions can, by their inherent quality, be difficult”, that you should always consider the consequences, that management occurs where evolution intersects with compassion.

Emotional Core

The book contains nevertheless real emotion within. Leading England through a era of fury, hope, political ferment and lockdown was a harsh experience. The wounds are obviously still fresh, even if presented in a jargon-laden reimagining of the classic football manager narrative: why I was actually right about everything all along.

Specific Examples

The publication’s opening passage, disguised as thrilling memories of the deciding game of the European Championship, is all about how effective he really was at player changes (the primary common complaint revolving around he wasn’t successful at making changes). Further on, he goes into significant detail about how he handled the Euros final of 2021 flawlessly – specifically the unsuccessful spot-kick decider – because he complied with a established procedure, which must mean that introducing young players at the last moment to take the crucial shot of their careers was reasonable and right.

That approach was confirmed by a victorious shootout against the Swiss team four years later after a fixture where England spent the full duration looking as if they were trying to put on a jumper the inside out. “Our dominance in that tiebreaker was truly exhilarating,” Southgate writes, amid comparing the showing to US Navy Seals eliminating a notorious figure. Goodness.

Withheld Details

When we come near to a revelation, he backs away from identifying individuals or providing the substance. We learn there were problematic England players who demanded more attention, possibly because they were indulged early in their careers. But as you anticipate hopefully, Southgate is already shifting into an area titled a leadership concept, which states that rather than a grouping of characteristics or principles, culture is in fact a phenomenon that is developed by, alas, stop, we’ve heard enough.

Notable Sections

Included in the better sections are when Southgate discusses about the gradual process of developing fortitude in youth, or how he tried to define national identity more clearly and more constructively than anyone else in the public eye. Best of all, there is a truly absorbing account of that traumatic match in Sofia where England’s African heritage squad members were viciously abused (and later supported robustly by their manager).

Heartfelt Conclusion

Possibly the most emotional part {comes|arrives|appears