Sir Gareth Southgate: The Truth About Leaving England (E380)
The High Performance Podcast
High Performance
4.8 • 4.7K Ratings
🗓️ 24 November 2025
⏱️ 77 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We welcome back Sir Gareth Southgate to High Performance for his most open and reflective conversation yet.
In this episode, Gareth breaks his silence on England’s “almost” era, revealing the fear of failure, pressure of history, and fine margins that have shaped his time as manager. He discusses the burden of expectation, the culture of small daily habits and respect he’s built, and the empathy and vulnerability that define his modern approach to leadership.
From handling Wayne Rooney’s retirement to protecting players from public scrutiny, Southgate opens up about the realities of leading under relentless pressure, the evolution of England’s team culture, and what legacy truly means beyond trophies.
This is a rare, honest conversation with one of football’s most thoughtful leaders, about resilience, accountability, and what it really takes to lead a nation.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Then we go to a penalty shootout. For us in that moment, it was about the process that gives us the best percentage chance of winning. |
| 0:09.0 | A friend of ours looked after the dog and he's thrown up all over the bedroom floor. |
| 0:14.0 | Bear in mind the Spanish managers currently in Madrid on an open top bus. |
| 0:18.0 | Go over to support the fans, the lobbying beer at me. If the joy is gone, |
| 0:23.5 | you're going to find it hard to give that feeling that you need to give the players. |
| 0:29.4 | That is the voice of Gareth Southgate, the former England manager, a transformative leader, |
| 0:34.1 | the man who took a team that hadn't won a knockout game in a decade to |
| 0:38.3 | back-to-back European Championship Finals. But this is about so much more than just football, because this |
| 0:43.8 | is a conversation about Gareth navigating incredible scrutiny, dealing with the highest stakes, and |
| 0:50.3 | defining a legacy that goes far beyond the scoreline. We're about to delve into the profound |
| 0:55.0 | shift from managing football results to managing human beings. Gareth explains to us what it was |
| 1:01.1 | like walking through the door as England manager in 2016 to find a team disconnected from |
| 1:05.9 | its fans, disconnected from the media and players just protecting themselves from failure. |
| 1:12.1 | He explains to us why he took his team into the mud with the Marines and what the soldiers revealed about who the real |
| 1:16.8 | England leaders were. We talk about the penalty shootout redemption from missing in 96 to masterminding |
| 1:23.0 | three wins in four attempts and why he told Marcus Rashford to practice less. |
| 1:29.1 | And that final tournament in Germany, having beer thrown at him by England fans, |
| 1:33.8 | him asking the people closest to him not to come to the tournament. |
| 1:37.9 | And actually, why he knew before that final, whether they won or lost, he'd be walking away. |
| 1:45.9 | Please welcome back to high performance, the incredible Sir Gareth Southgate. Welcome back to high performance. Thanks |
| 1:55.5 | for having me again. Well, Gareth, it's been 15 months since you walked away from the |
| 1:59.6 | England job. Why? Well, whyareth, it's been 15 months since you walked away from the England job. |
... |
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