A new era for England football kicked off recently with Lee Carsley taking charge of his first two international matches and winning both.
Carsley is an interim appointment and may or may not end up being made Gareth Southgate’s permanent successor as leader of the men’s team. But his presence in the dugout prompts the question, of all the managers who have led England since the 1950s, who are the Top 3.
Here is my list of Top 3 England managers
1. Sir Alf Ramsey — no arguments.
He won the World Cup.
No one else has.
(58 years of hurt and counting by the way)
2. Gareth Southgate — strong as the claims of Bobby Robson and Terry Venables are, it is Southgate who edges it for me.
He took a team that had lost embarrassingly to Iceland and turned them into serial winners (well, serial runners-up at least). And he did it in an era when social media trolling made the so-called impossible job 100 times more impossible
3. Sonia Wiegman — so there was 1966 and then… not a lot else to cheer about really.
Certainly not in the way of silverware.
That is until Wiegman came along.
The Dutch coach led the Lionesses to victory in the 2023 Euros and struck a blow for equality in sport at the same time. Suddenly women’s football was on the national radar, and figures such as Ellen White and Lucy Bronze became household names.
Which makes Wiegman not just a successful international manager but a catalyst for social change too.