Kevin Keegan was speaking on the BBC this week about his time as England manager and said that he found it soul-destroying.
‘I liked the day-to-day running of a football club,’ Keegan told Garry Richardson on Radio 4. ‘Every time I joined up with the England players it was like starting again. Trying to rebuild. I didn’t like that, so I got out.’
Results didn’t help Keegan, of course, but he makes a valid point. The problems he outlines are what make international football management unique and utterly different to club work.
Managing a club at any level is about strategy, smart recruitment, incremental progress and — if you are fortunate enough to be given the time — implementing a style of football.
At international level, it’s not about that at all and that’s the reason why I read of the FA’s interest in Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola with scepticism.
Lee Carsley has impressed as England interim boss and could be handed the job permanently
Man City boss Pep Guardiola (left) and former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp (right) are candidates for the England vacancy
Ideally, I would not choose either man to manage England and it’s got nothing to do with the fact one is from Germany and the other from Spain.
I would prefer the next full-time boss to be English, as Gareth Southgate’s eight years in the job made the benefits of that very clear. But I am absolutely not a slave to the idea.
No, this is not about that. This is about the fundamentals of how Klopp and Guardiola work and what they have always done to get the best out of the club teams and indeed the players they have managed.
Klopp, for example, is a mood manager. At Mainz and Dortmund in Germany, and then at Liverpool, Klopp injected the sheer force of his personality into the veins of a town, a club and a playing squad. Everything then stemmed and flowed from that, on and off the field.
Klopp can coach fantastically, of course he can. But take away that essence of energy and ferocity that is bred only by intense relationships and time and familiarity, and what do you have left? Keegan was the same at Newcastle. Exactly the same in many ways. And Guardiola is altogether different. The great Catalan —probably the best club coach in the world — is a long-termist, an obsessive details man.
He is a builder of football teams from the ground up. He puts his projects together from a thousand tiny pieces. But international football is not like that. It’s short-termist. It goes from international weekend to international weekend, then starts again.
There is simply not enough time on the grass to impose the philosophies and cultures, and intricate moments of brilliance and uniqueness, that have made Klopp and Guardiola what they are.
They could do it. They could adapt. Of course they could. They are deeply smart men. But what would be the point of hiring a manager who has spent two decades building the best version of his professional self only to expect him to do things a different and vastly diluted way?
International management is hard. Largely that is because of the responsibility of the post and the pressure that brings as a result. But it’s also hard because of its remoteness.
The search for Gareth Southgate’s permanent England successor remains ongoing
England’s interim manager Lee Carsley nodded to it in the Republic of Ireland last week when he pointed out he had
just three morning sessions to drill his team before their opening Nations League fixture. A very significant period of that time would have been spent working tactically and on team shape and on attacking and defensive set-pieces.
How much time is left for improving players? How much time for muck and nettles coaching and shaping of individuals? Not as much as you would think.
Klopp has previously been able to get the best out of England full-back Trent Alexander-Arnold
Managing a national team is about facilitating as much as anything. It’s about picking the right players in the right positions, providing them with a good environment, understanding and connecting with them, then giving them a framework within which to play. It is hard to reinvent footballers on international duty. How well that did that go with Trent Alexander-Arnold in central midfield at Euro 2024?
Guardiola devoted months to turning John Stones into a centre back who spends half his time in central midfield. Good luck with trying to teach Ezri Konsa that in two training sessions before a big World Cup qualifier.
Klopp and Guardiola have produced two of the best Premier League football teams I have had the fortune to see play. None of that means their brilliance would translate across the divide to international football.
They could both do the job perfectly well, I am sure. It’s just that some of the magic may well be missing.
DROPPING COLE PALMER FROM EUROPE IS A GOOD DECISION
Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca has omitted Cole Palmer from his Conference League squad and he is right to do so.
Maresca works for a club whose priority is to return to the Champions League, a competition they won as recently as 2021.
UEFA’s third-ranked competition is not of importance to Chelsea and it’s pointless pretending that it is. Maresca needs Palmer fit and rested for the games that matter.
This is a smart call.
Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca has omitted Cole Palmer from his Conference League squad and he is right to do so
McCLAREN’S AUTHENTICITY IS REASSURING
Steve McClaren is the new manager of Jamaica and has been laughed at on social media after a video showed one of his players teaching him a special handshake.
This kind of stuff tends to follow McClaren around but this one feels unfair.
He’s authentic at the very least and, in a football world full of phoneys, there is something reassuring about that.
New Jamaica boss Steve McClaren has been laughed at on social media after a video showed one of his players teaching him a special handshake
SUTTON’S PODCAST JIBE
My It’s All Kicking Off co-host Chris Sutton appeared on the fabulous new Soccer A-Z podcast this week and described me as a ‘strange, weird, miserable little bloke’.
I won’t be suing him.
