GAreth Southgate looked ready for his post-match press conference deep in the cod-classic gray concrete dungeon of Berlin’s Olympiastadion. Not ready yet as the numbers are crunched and the Nations League dates planned for September against the Republic of Ireland, but ready gogo.
Southgate said he would “give himself a few days” to consider what to do next. This in itself is Southgate’s style. These days will no doubt be spent doing gentle and restorative things, walking the Jurassic Trail, learning Mandarin, and recording an inspirational Ted Talk called “Dare to Dare” or “Managing Failure.”
The use of past tense is obvious. Southgate refers to England as “England”, not “us”. This isn’t Nice’s jaded Roy Hodgson, who looms in the camera frame looking like a vampire on his way back from an all-night casino. Southgate seemed more exhausted than usual during this game, and in most of his public interactions he had the look of a disappointed gazelle being asked to explain calculus to a crowd of angry toddlers. But in Berlin, despite the pain, he seemed more or less calm.
We can scream at the coach because he is clearly committing a war crime because he is not as good as we would like him to be, because he does not express a layered, tactically coherent football culture that Spain can learn from. France, Italy, Argentina and Spain have won trophies in the Southgate era, powered by unprecedented talent, a continuous production line of talent and the style template of the era. Italy was the one who escaped. England could have won before the penalty shootout. But over time, the noise will subside and the numbers will tell the story: two finals and one semi-final for a country that has had one final and two semi-finals throughout its history. To claim that this is not a good thing requires a staggering degree of cognitive dissonance, a worldview that is completely inconsistent with the inconvenient truth.
However, all things come to an end. Entropy is a natural process. Eight years and four games is a life cycle. We’ve heard players love the environment and want more. But maybe what the players think isn’t the problem. Maybe they need something new. Maybe we all do. It feels like that era in England is now over. So what to do next?
Euro 2024 confirms two important things. First of all, the England team is important to people. The interest in these tournaments is huge. International football has its own problems, not least being undermined by the greedy competitiveness of club football. But in the UK it remains vital, visceral, profitable, an insatiable thirst and will continue to do so.
Secondly, the manager is a crucial figure even now. This is not logical. In the final analysis, international football is a test of system and culture, not a test of personality. But this is still how this ritual psychodrama works. Southgate himself has always been vividly present in images of everyday life, oddly enough for an essentially private figure, floating in his tin can, exposed to all light and hunger, of course, every When that fails, he needs to serve as a piñata for public outrage.
With that in mind, here’s a suggestion. Assuming Southgate leaves now, the Football Association should go all out to hire Jurgen Klopp. Klopp probably doesn’t want it. He definitely has plans to compete. He may be too big for the job. But he is absolutely perfect.
There are two points that lead to this conclusion. The England manager remains the most culturally and financially important figure in English football. But although the British are obsessed with managers, they cannot cultivate managers. No one in domestic football has the ability to continue this. Eleven coaches from Spain’s elite clubs fielded players in both teams on Sunday, including tactical figures who have been dominant over the past 25 years. There are two representatives of the English football team; neither Sean Dyche nor Eddie Howe have won a major trophy.
Second, what happens now matters. There are indications that the FA’s current budget may not be able to afford Klopp’s fee. Get rid of it. England earned between €5 million and €8 million after reaching the final. Spend your money on the right manager. Get a custom sponsor. Let Tesco pay.
Klopp, like Southgate, is a culture builder, a process-oriented man. He has the warmth and charisma to bring energy to the stage. He’s like Southgate’s cooler, taller, more successful cousin. But he’s also a proven, modern elite coach. Klopp is also in the Premier League, has trained English players, understood and improved the tactical culture. He probably enjoys this kind of time. There is no need to live in the country all the time. Let him wear a baseball cap. Make it work.
In return, England has a stable culture and good young players. What they needed was warmth, fun and energy, coupled with a degree of consistency and in-game control that Southgate simply proved incapable of delivering. In many ways, Klopp is almost too good. Could you hire a rockstar Santa Claus to fill the role of essentially a national gym teacher?
There are other things. If that happens—and there’s no actual evidence that it does—then we’ll at least know. If this group of players and an entrenched culture fueled by one of the great coaches of the modern era can’t get any closer to winning something, then maybe it’s time to ask whether the problem is ultimately just us. That’s perhaps the most important thing about Southgate’s (possible) end. There are things we can learn from another lost final.
The first is the treatment of the England coach. Frankly speaking, the environment Southgate faced was extraordinary, hostile, ruthless and irrational. The way people talk about a kind, decent, wholehearted man is not only unacceptable, but deeply frustrating. From ex-pros looking for clicks and leverage to everyone with a finger and a smartphone, there’s a spectrum of disrespect, ignorance and meanness. British football and the British people should feel deeply sorry for this.
In many ways, Southgate’s achievements with the team are even greater because they were achieved against a backdrop of such extraordinary noise. After England won the World Cup in 1966, Sir Alf Ramsey locked his front door and hung up the phone. Imagine trying to function clearly in a static realm.
Of course, this is another reason why England lost. This is not the main reason, but it is a burden. It’s worth remembering how dark, how cruel and how toxic some parts of the last European Cup final at Wembley were. For the past year and a half, the country has sweated in caves and dreamed of escape. It carries with it joy, release, a rocket to the sky, and finally, anger, tantrums, and racist slurs. Some players don’t seem to have fully recovered from the experience.
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Insults, questions about ability and character, are echoes of the same unspeakable anger. Of course, every time this happens, England get closer to defeat, and this time the clouds are made worse thanks to the encouragement of celebrity pundits and podcast peddlers with unusual clout and profile.
There is a widespread belief that the ‘media’ habitually destabilizes the England team. But “the media” has changed. For once, the only people in the country who actually like and respect Southgate are newspaper reporters. Angry businessmen, abusers, and door-to-doors have become ordinary people on social media.
The media is Nigel250734, and its avatar is an involuntary celibate lion. The medium is also home to Gary Lineker’s tough jokes podcast. Who knows, maybe Lineker even has some credit here, using an unnecessarily sensational comment to unite players, coaches and media at least in a common goal of not liking Gary Lineker that much s reason. Maybe it’s all a secret stroke of genius and he does deserve some credit for getting England into another final. Hooray: Damn Father.
This environment has been an issue for the team and Southgate believes he has mitigated it by cultivating a warmer relationship with the traditional media. One thing is for sure: whoever the FA hires next, you hope they get a better deal.
The second session was even simpler, just football. Spain remains the model. Spain has won four trophies this century, dominated a coaching culture and produced players who can see and interpret the game with their feet.
By the same token, whatever mistakes Southgate makes, he is essentially the embodiment of the culture that made him who he is. What do we expect here? Johan Cruyff? Marcelo Bielsa? Without English schools, there would be no way to English. Tactics and styles must always be made up, imposed, and learned by rote.
While England have some very good players, this can be misleading. The England player has won something, but they are in the side of Rodri, Luka Modric and Erling Haaland while being coached by Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti.
Digging a little deeper, it might be worth thinking about the culture England need to reflect. There is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of Football Comes Home. What kind of home is this? What would it mean if England won this match? What methods are worthy of appreciation and replication by the rest of the world? Create celebrity players. There is no coherent coaching school of its own. Think of your national sport as a cash cow. Ignore your base. Perhaps the real reason football isn’t coming home is that not enough homes are being built.
The success of the academy and Southgate’s work since 2016 have bridged that divide. It introduces talents and methods from other cultures on a large scale. England’s squad is largely made up of academy students who have been taken out of the grassroots system and trained in elite facilities. For England, winning the trophy would be a tribute to an outstanding private enterprise; but not some triumph of national sporting culture. Yes, being a cultural magpie, borrowing, synthesizing and outsourcing is also deeply British. Hiring Klopp would be a very exciting example.
Now, maybe it’s time to accept that teams always die in the end, and England reached the final here while also acting like a bunch of players running on battery backup at times. Southgate deserves a grateful and affectionate farewell. Running England is an exciting, exhausting, addictive part of public life. Knowing how to let go is also a skill.
