Monday, August 13th, 2018

Why I Love The NFL With Gareth Southgate

Liam Blackburn

Editor

Why I Love The NFL With Gareth Southgate

Liam Blackburn NFL

Prior to his side’s successful run to the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, England manager Gareth Southgate witnessed Super Bowl LII at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minnesota and told Gridiron deputy editor Liam Blackburn about his interest in the ‘other’ football.

So Gareth, what brings you to Minnesota?

Leaders in Sport, who run some coaching conferences, put together some more private coaching groups with smaller numbers so I’ve been out here with them. We’ve had two Aussie Rules coaches, the Atlanta Falcons and Minnesota Vikings GMs, the GM from the (Minnesota) Timberwolves, Australian rugby union coach Michael Cheika and (Team Sky GM) Dave Brailsford – really high level of people just bouncing ideas of each other and sharing issues that you have to deal with.

Can you learn a great deal talking to people in other high-level positions in sports such as the NFL?

There are loads of similarities across sports, slightly different ways of approaching them and the details of the sports is different but the general issues for head coaches are very similar. I’m always keen to go and work with people and find new ideas. They are in winning organisations and so the detail of how they work is quite similar. The challenges of dealing with big players is similar, developing leaders, developing young players, the size of everybody’s staff, how everybody uses data, for example. Huge similarities across the board but some quite big cultural differences.

What about the NFL specifically, do you watch it much?

I watched it more when I was younger on Channel 4. I’m going back to people like Marcus Allen from the L.A. Raiders and when the Chicago Bears had their team and were winning regularly. I don’t have time to watch all of the games on Sunday because I’m watching Premier League games but the detail of how they coach, all the individual positions and how a team is going to attack, defend. In whichever sport I’m watching, I’m always thinking, ‘Is there something we can do that we might put into practice for our training or into our practice in a game’.

What have you made of Super Bowl week?

It’s fascinating to see. It feels like when you’re involved in a European Championship or World Cup but all for one game. The way it’s taken over the whole city, the way the NFL have run with various concerts, the amount of media coverage and expectations on the teams, how they deal with that, the excitement of fans coming into the city for the game. I love all sports so to be involved in watching a major sporting event is a delight really.

This Super Bowl features one of the all-time great NFL head coaches in Bill Belichick; what are your impressions of him as a fellow coach?

I’ve never met him but what’s clear is that anybody that wins continually, it’s one of the hardest things to do in sport – to win anyway but to win after winning and keep the organisation hungry. The level of detail he works at is clear, it’s interesting following the storyline with him and (Tom) Brady this year, maybe (the relationship) isn’t quite as close. That’s always fascinating because Brady’s 40 now so at some point he’s going to have to leave the scene. How that’s all managed for any coach is an interesting case, I think. You’re just learning from everything.

Brady seems to be on a mission to redefine how long players can last at the top of their game. Do you see his example being followed in other sports such as football?

If anything, you’d say that even though medical science and fitness is improving, that the level of the hits in a lot of sports mean that players will play for less time. To have physical capability to do it and the hunger and the desire to still keep going is incredible really. I’m not sure you’d see many of his like.

WHO YOU GOT?

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