Gareth Southgate says football training days could be over | Football | Sport

Former England boss Gareth Southgate has revealed he will not “rush” into a new coaching role after taking advice from people who have held high office.

Southgate resigned two days after Spain beat the Three Lions in the Euro 2024 final in July, after eight years in the coveted role.

In his first major interview since then, he said: “The fact that it’s one of the biggest jobs I think has meant that I’ve wanted to give myself more time to talk to lots of fascinating people who have been in big jobs and find out what they did after that.

“I don’t want to betray their trust, but people have been very generous in sharing and talking about these things and they’ve all said, ‘Don’t rush it.’

“I have been a player and coach for 37 years, and I am not opposed to the next period of my life being completely different. When you’ve had one of the biggest jobs, how do you follow it up?

“Obviously, it also has a higher purpose with the national team, but there will be other challenges out there that will excite me – and it doesn’t have to be in coaching.”

Speaking to Lauren Laverne on Desert Island Discs, Gareth, 54, hinted at how difficult it was to leave his dream job to choose the Adele song Someone Like You.

He said: “I kept playing towards the end of the last European Championship because I knew I was going to leave.

“I had made up my mind that it was time for change on all sides, and there are so many of the words in it that even though I hear it today, it relates to my relationship with England and their relationship with me, and how I really feel for it all.

“Like how they have to move on and you wish them the best and there are regrets and there were actually memories to be made. There are so many lines in it that actually really resonated with me.”

Noting that he hopes to “avoid” talking in detail about the England team, he said: “I would never be in the way.”

He also discussed the pain of his penalty miss in the Euro 1996 semi-final against Germany, saying: “When we lost Euro 2021, I don’t think for a minute that it was the players who missed the penalties.

“We had 120 minutes to win the game. I’ve told them that’s not how I see it that night – but it’s still how I see it in ’96. I struggled to move on from that. There was no aftercare or support, because no one thought of that in those days.”

Gareth also named The Carpenters’ Rainy Days and Mondays and Shape of You by Ed Sheeran among his top tracks.

The father of two chose The Chimpanzee Paradox by Steve Peters as his book and a coffee machine as his luxury item to take to the island.

The full interview is on BBC Radio 4 at 10 today, or BBC Sounds