It’s that time of the year where we’re at the dawn of a major international tournament and the country has immersed themselves in hope for the next month or so. Any concerns over the manager or playing style have been forgotten about for this next month. We all have hope and belief that the boys can bring home the country’s first silverware for 58 years, but will Southgate be the man to bring it home?
The Golden Generation?
When we look at the landscape of management on the international level, it is not of the highest calibre of managers we have seen. Without being harsh if we look at Portugal, fellow favourites, they have Roberto Martinez and while he had some success with the Belgium squad in his previous job, he ultimately managed Belgium’s golden generation of players such as De Bruyne, Kompany, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Lukaku, Courtois, Mertens and of course the Hazard brothers, just to name a few. We know that it’s difficult to win a major tournament but that Belgium side felt like they were never really a major threat for any tournament they entered, despite the abundance of talent.
Now similar cases could be put forward towards the England squad since 2018, however we all know in 2018 the England side then are levels below what our current side is now. The point on this section is to highlight the level of managers at the Euros now, Roberto Martinez is ultimately remembered for winning an FA cup with Wigan, a great underdog story, but not an achievement gained when he has had to manage big egos on the big stage.
The same pressure that Martinez felt at Belgium will be felt at Portugal as well, with this currently crop of talent also extremely highly rated, names like Rafael Leao, Joao Cancelo, Ruben Dias, Bruno Fernandes, Diogo Jota and of course the main man Cristiano Ronaldo. He’s looked consistently good so far at Portugal but the same was said about once upon-a-time world number one’s Belgium going into tournaments.
The Hosts
Managers at the top of the international game are not often coveted names, which is why someone like Julian Nagelsmann, Germany’s national team manager, really stands out from the rest. The young manager is only 36 years old still and yet it feels as if he has been around for years, he has already managed German giants Bayern Munich after his time at RB Leipzig and Hoffenheim. His ultimate demise at Bayern appears from the outside to have been due to a breakdown in relationships with the players and one story which made the rounds was particularly with Kimmich. This makes for an interesting dynamic in the German camp as Kimmich is arguably one of Germany’s most influential players in their team in terms of style of play and composure in big games, with a potential midfield of Kroos and Kimmich being an extremely daunting possibility.
Since Nagelmann’s departure from Bayern, he has only gained in reputation arguably as his replacement, Thomas Tuchel, has also struggled with the club and butting-heads with certain players, ultimately leading to him now losing his job. Nagelsmann is still persistently linked with the big jobs even while employed on the international level, not something which normally happens, Luis Enrique was probably the last big-name manager on the international level. Nagelsmann is not on his level yet but his ceiling as a manager is incredibly high, and it would not surprise me if we saw him at a major club soon. For now, I think the draw of managing his country in his home nation is too big for him to resist even with some of the big jobs flying round this summer. His young age can also mean he shows some inexperience at times but I do believe having a top tactically astute manager in these tournaments can prove decisive in the big moments.
The new enemy
Everyone remembers where they were on that fateful night in 2022, the moment when Harry Kane placed the ball on the penalty spot for the second time that night, only to blaze it over his club captains bar in the France goal. Every international tournament we enter into now, France are always seen as the team to beat. Arguably should have won the 2016 Euros, sorry Ronaldo fans, won the world cup in 2018, failed miserably in Euro 2021 and went within a Emiliano Martinez boot of the 2022 world cup. One man has overseen all this since his appointment in 2012, Didier Deschamps.
Now Didier Deschamps splits opinion when it comes to his managerial ability, he had some success at club level with Monaco, famously taking them to a champion’s league final in 2004 after lifting a Ligue 1 title, he then lifted the same trophy with Marseille later that decade. Now managing on the internation level is a different ball game to club level, there is less time spent with players, on the training pitch and a large portion of the job role is man-management. Deschamps is clearly able to get a tune out of his French players, shown by his repeated success deep into international tournaments. He has achieved this with top level footballers who often carry with them big-egos as most top professionals do, players like Pogba, Mbappe, Griezmann, Varane, Lloris at the top of their game would all have had big characters. Deschamps was able to get the best out of them all, in particular Paul Pogba, something even ‘The Special One’ was not able to do in Manchester. So Deschamps is clearly a top-level international manager.
The one blip and chink in the armour we have seen from France was in 2021, which could actually have a significant impact on this coming tournament. The thinking behind this is in 2021 was when Karim Benzema had come in from the cold in the national team and was playing to his peak abilities at the time. Now, despite having a prime Benzema and Kylian Mbappe spearheading the French attack, the favourites bombed out in the Round of 16 to Switzerland. This is significant because this was the one tournament Deschamps had not started Giroud as a regular, due to the high flying balon d’or winning Benzema. Giroud is France’s top goal-scorer of all time currently and has been an ever-present under Deschamps, with the manager actually building his teams around Giroud to a certain extent.
He has rarely veered away from his tactical approach of Griezmann playing off Giroud and when he did in 2021 France were a different side who were even leaking goals at the back. This lack of tactical flexibility could hinder Deschamps as Giroud is set to retire from international football after the Euros, so will the manager persist with his same tactical approach or will he look to move on from Giroud?
Who else is there?
These are only a few of England’s main rivals I have dove into here, of course there are others to keep an eye out for. Luciano Spalletti will be taking charge of a very new look Italian side for the first time. We don’t know how that’s going to pan out for the former Serie A winning manager with Napoli, but he’ll be hoping to recreate a similar feat again on the big stage now. He won’t have all his players available to him, like Tonali, due to the betting scandal which took hold in the Italian side.
Luis De La Fuente, has risen up the ranks of the Spanish national team’s management structure meaning he will surely have Spain’s beautiful footballing style of play engrained into his side, with Spain always being a threat with their silky players and tiki-taka style. They will be viewed as outside favourites while being in a different group containing Italy and Croatia.
Then the former Southampton, Everton and Barcelona manager Ronald Koeman will be looking to show more of that fight we saw in the 2022 world cup where they almost toppled Argentina in the quarter finals. He has a point to prove now this tournament with a lot of criticism over his tactical style since he was at Barcelona. To the average premier league fan they will remember his success at Southampton, only to go to Everton and struggle in the year he had there. So, can Koeman bring Dutch football back to the promised lands?
Southgate…
Finally, on to our own Gareth Southgate, he has come under a lot of fire from the media and fans in the past year or so for the style of play and ‘boring’ football which has been viewed recently. Southgate has an abundance of talent at his feet this tournament, more than ever before in recent times. He has shown a real stubbornness at times with some players in the past, but when his squad selection was released this time around there was a quiet respect for Southgate from the fans I feel, as he dropped certain players like Rashford, Henderson and Philips who everyone assumed would be in the squad because of Southgate’s loyalty to his players. This could be a sign that Gareth is ready to push on now and really put a marker down on the international level.
Despite the performances not being of the highest level recently, I cast my mind back to 2022 against France, where we arguably outplayed the world champions and should have won the game in my eyes, biased or not. If Southgate can take that confidence from back then and use his man-management skills we know he has then England could be in good stead for success. He will need to be brave if he is to do this though as the squad is still extremely young, missing over 100 caps of experience with those 3 previous names dropped, for new fresh names like Palmer and Mainoo.
While Gareth is certainly a great man-manager and looks to have let go of some of his player loyalties, there are always questions over his tactical approach, first XI and substitutions, with calls for him to be braver. He has often favoured a 3-4-3 formation for defensive structure, but has always said he wanted to move to a 4-3-3 but did not have the players for it. Well we showed against France that a 4-3-3 could work and if he can unluck players like Bellingham and Foden then we have a shot.
The country is crying out for Gareth to take the shackles off the players and let them play. However, a solid defence is key to the success of a team especially in tournament football so Gareth’s cautious approach is definitely a method which gets you deep into tournaments as we’ve seen, but is it enough to win one…or will he take those shackles off?