Enter the dreamers, the demented optimists, and the people who think “ex-England striker with two seasons at a Championship club” is a reasonable candidate. The shortlist? It’s less a list, more a chaotic bingo card of “what if?”s. Could it be the fiery, flamboyant, slightly unhinged personality of Steve Bruce, who once looked like he’d been trained in a Sunderland basement with a motivational poster that said “Be Brutal, Not Boring”? He’s got passion, he’s got a beard like a badger in a trench coat, and he’s never once said “we’ll see how it goes” without sounding like he’s lying. But let’s be real — we’re not handing the reins to someone who once said “I think we’ve got a chance” after losing to a team from the same county as his mum.
Then there’s the younger, shinier, Instagram-ready names. Think: the 38-year-old former academy coach with a PhD in “how to look like you’ve got a plan” and a TikTok account where he drops football wisdom in 12-second clips. He’s got a slogan: “We don’t just play football — we play *the future*.” The only problem? He’s never managed a first team in the Premier League, and his last public appearance involved trying to explain offside using a stick of celery. But hey, at least he’s on the right side of the age gap — not that we need a manager who still believes in “the heart of the game” while wearing a tracksuit with a logo from 2013.
And let’s not forget the wild card: the woman who once led a women’s team to a cup final while juggling a side-hustle doing yoga for retired footballers. She’s got the stats, the vision, the emotional intelligence — and yes, she’s probably the only person in England who’s ever said “let’s build a culture of resilience” without sounding like a corporate training video. But the moment she’s mentioned, the Twitter mob storms in like a 1990s England squad trying to break the offside rule: “She’s never managed a men’s team!” “She’ll be too soft!” “She won’t understand the *pressure*!” Honestly, the *pressure*? We’re talking about football. You’re not running a nuclear reactor.
Now, if we’re being *truly* honest — and we’re not, because honestly, we’re not — the real replacement might already be sitting in a pub somewhere, sipping a pint, watching a game, muttering, “I could do better than that.” The truth? England doesn’t need a miracle. It needs someone who can look at a team full of million-pound talents and say, “Right, let’s not panic when we lose possession for 17 seconds.” It needs someone who doesn’t flinch when the crowd starts chanting “We want Southgate!” in the 87th minute. It needs a person who can handle the weight of a nation’s dreams — while also remembering to eat lunch.
And speaking of dreams… imagine this: a manager who doesn’t just talk about “the journey” but *actually* takes it. Not in a helicopter over the English Channel, no — a real journey. A train to Glasgow, a ferry to Dublin, a car ride through the Cotswolds, stopping at a roadside café where they serve tea so strong it could wake the dead. That’s the kind of manager who’ll understand that football isn’t just about 90 minutes on a pitch — it’s about the stories in between. The quiet conversations in the locker room, the shared laughter after a bad loss, the way a fan in a village pub in Wiltshire still remembers your name from a match they watched in 1999.
So while the headlines scream “WHO’S NEXT?” and the pundits debate formation philosophies like they’re writing a thesis on existential dread, the real answer might be simpler than we think. Maybe the next England manager isn’t a household name with a trophy cabinet full of “almosts.” Maybe they’re someone who just *gets it* — the joy, the frustration, the sheer absurdity of loving a team that can’t quite make it work. Someone who knows that sometimes, the most important play isn’t on the pitch — it’s when you finally stop pretending you’ve got it all figured out.
In the end, we’ll pick someone. We’ll panic. We’ll hope. We’ll probably regret it after three games. But somewhere, deep down, we’ll still believe — because that’s the beauty of it. Football is never about perfection. It’s about hope. And maybe, just maybe, the next great England manager is someone who’s already been on a trip to Iceland, ate a fish sandwich they didn’t like, and still laughed about it. Now *that* sounds like a leader worth following.
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