What all of us can learn from Gareth Southgate
Part of Gareth Southgate's success could be his willingness to turn to football outsiders to help prepare his England team. One of these advisers, former Olympian Matthew Syed, argues there's a lot the rest of the world can learn about this approach.
"If Harry Redknapp - the coach of Southampton at the time - needs advice, what is wrong with, say, Tony Pulis or David Pleat ? They are experts on football!" They then realised that they were hiring people from similar universities who had learned under similar professors and had absorbed a similar range of concepts, heuristics and models. They were "clones" of each other. Only when they started looking beyond their usual horizons, reaching out to different universities and social networks, did things change.
"I like listening to people who know things that I don't," Southgate told me. "That's how you learn."Southgate has also assembled a diverse group of coaches in Graeme Jones, Chris Powell and Martyn Margetson - individuals who have deep but very different experiences of the game. And, just as importantly, he's keen to listen to them: the moment England score, the celebration is curtailed so that Southgate can gain the input of Steve Holland, his assistant.