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This soccer publication is strangely tedious, yet curiously irresistible. Its title raises questions. Dear England currently belongs to a hit play, an upcoming TV show, and a open letter written by Gareth Southgate in 2021.

This edition of Dear England is not officially connected to any of those. It stands as an oddity in the expanding Dear England universe, a volume about management: a classically dull elite football manager subject that the author sticks to relentlessly, relying on the words “leadership”, “guiding” or “leadership” no fewer than 500 times across 336 pages.

Inquiries Posed

“What are leaders? What do leaders do? What insights do leaders have?” Southgate inquires in the opening, outlining his position, but declining to address “Why are leaders?”, topics probably set aside for a second book.

Additionally, this book contains a book-shaped hole at its core. It’s a venture in passive-aggressive self-justification, in nearly but not entirely stating the actual thing, hopping adeptly from unsettled score to raw emotion across a assortment of data visualizations, corporate platitudes and discussions about 16th-century statesmen.

Reading Experience

Engaging with the text is like overhearing your family members having a polite but intensely emotional disagreement in the next room while you’re trying to pay attention on a corporate presentation named “112 Reasons Why Naturally I Had the Last Laugh”. But it is also impossible to put down, as the author keeps drifting near to a topic you truly desire to hear about, before suddenly changing tack.

Insights

The book contains typically attention-grabbing disclosures in works of this nature, explained by the rapt interest with England managerdom. The most striking instances include: Southgate decided he was definitely going to quit as England manager after fans tossed cups at him at the Euros; he nearly decided to forfeiting the game at half-time against the Bulgarian team in 2019 after his players were racially abused; he introduced the idea of dedicated restart experts and all teams in the top division is now following his lead; he has now abandoned his enthusiasm for soccer, a startling admission thrown away in a short passage at the end.

Leading England through a period of rage, optimism, upheaval and pandemic restrictions was a grueling experience. The wounds are evidently still raw.

Generic Content

Otherwise, the content is flooded with an computer-generated linguistic mush of commonplace management talk. Copies of this book were provided with critics under non-disclosure agreements before launch, likely out of fear someone might leak that “difficult conversations can, by their nature, be tough”, that you should always look before you leap, that leadership happens where evolution meets compassion.

Emotional Core

There is however genuine feeling within. Guiding England through a period of anger, optimism, upheaval and pandemic restrictions was a harsh journey. The wounds are clearly still unhealed, even if expressed in a terminology-heavy reinterpretation of the classic football manager theme: why I was actually right about all matters throughout.

Specific Examples

The book’s opening passage, presented as gripping memories of the championship match of Euro 2024, is entirely focused on how good he actually was at player changes (the major Southgate gripe revolving around he wasn’t effective at altering the lineup). Further on, he explores significant detail about how he handled the championship match of 2021 impeccably – specifically the unsuccessful spot-kick decider – because he adhered to a set protocol, which implies that introducing young players very late to take the most important kick of their existence was sensible and correct.

This was proved right by a successful tiebreaker against the Swiss team four years later after a fixture where England spent 120 minutes looking as if they were striving to don a sweater the wrong way round. “The control we exerted in that shootout was simply thrilling,” he writes, in between likening the showing to US Navy Seals neutralizing a notorious figure. Dear me.

Avoided Revelations

When we come near to a disclosure, Southgate retreats from specifying people or giving us the substance. We discover there were challenging England individuals who insisted on more consideration, maybe because they were pampered during the beginning of their careers. But as you expect expectantly, he is already veering off into an area titled The Culture Code, which claims that rather than a grouping of characteristics or values, culture is in fact something that is developed by, unfortunately, please, that’s sufficient.

Highlights

Included in the more compelling bits are when Southgate writes about the incremental process of developing fortitude in young people, or how he tried to define national identity more coherently and more helpfully than anyone else in the limelight. Best of all, there is a really gripping narrative of that harrowing evening in Sofia where England’s black players were targeted with hatred (and later defended vigorously by their coach).

Heartfelt Conclusion

Perhaps the most heartfelt section {comes|arrives|appears