England: Existing links give 'familiar face' Lee Carsley a major advantage in job audition

One of the difficulties of international football, particularly compared to the club game, is how little time managers have to work with their players.

Building coherent, tactically-advanced national teams is challenging when coaches have only a handful of camps a year between major tournaments, and often have to cram two matches into little over a week, including rest and recovery days.

As a result, top national sides are typically less coherent and advanced than the best club teams, with managers occasionally struggling to get the best from their star players - arguably evidenced succinctly by Gareth Southgate's England, who often felt less than the sum of their parts, in spite of their notable successes.

The big question for Southgate's current successor, interim head coach Lee Carsley, is whether he can build a more coherent and exciting version of England, and the former Everton midfielder will be hoping his familiarity with the squad can be an advantage.

It was striking at St George's Park on Tuesday how many of England's players are at home with Carsley already, to the point where the 50-year-old appears to universally be referred to as 'Cars' by the squad.

"I’ve known him a long time now," said Chelsea defender Levi Colwill. "He gave me my England Under-21s debut, he’s played me here, I’ve got a very good relationship with him, there’s a lot of trust in there."

Colwill's Chelsea team-mate Noni Madueke said similar, making the point that it was easy for him to settle into the senior squad after his maiden call-up last month because he is so familiar with Carsley and his coaches from the youth set-up.

"It was great. Him, Ash [Ashley Cole] and Joleon [Lescott], but a lot of the boys as well I knew, it was great. It was easy to settle in last camp for sure," Madueke said.

Colwill and Madueke are among the players who were part of Carsley's Under-21 European Championship-winning squad in summer 2023 who are now part of the seniors, along with Angel Gomes, Anthony Gordon and Cole Palmer.

But the majority of players in the squad have worked with Carsley at one time or another, and he knows many of them intimately - which will surely be a major plus in building a slicker England side.

Dominic Solanke is 27 but Carsley was working with the U-21s as a coach before he succeeded Aidy Boothroyd as manager three years ago, so even the Tottenham striker has worked with him at youth level.

"I knew Cars from England Under-21 days," said Solanke, who was named in the squad for this month's Nations League matches after seven years in the wilderness.

"He’s a familiar face. He said he would put me back in and he’s been watching the games closely and seeing how I’ve been doing. He said he wanted to give me the opportunity to come back into the fold."

Carsley has been on the FA’s books on and off since 2015, while he has also worked in some of the country's leading academies, including a season in charge of Manchester City's U-18s, where he led a squad including Phil Foden and Jadon Sancho to the FA Youth Cup Final.

On the one hand, Carsley's background may work against him when the FA decides on a permanent successor to Southgate; he has never previously managed a senior side on a permanent basis, and spent the vast majority of his post-playing career working with development squads.

On the other hand, though, there is no candidate - including high-profile names such as Thomas Tuchel and Pep Guardiola - who will have such an in-depth knowledge of the squad as Carsley, and these relationships and connections should count in his favour.

Southgate was, of course, promoted from England's U-21s, while Spain's European Championship-winning coach, Luis de la Fuente, came through the Spanish FA's system and Lionel Scaloni, who led his country to the World Cup in Qatar, was previously Argentina's Under-20 coach.

Connections alone do not make a winning team and arguably it was Southgate's lack of nous as an elite tactician that prevented his England side getting over the line.

But all three of the above examples demonstrate the value of appointing an international coach who knows the players and the national organisation inside out.

Perhaps this is the future of international football, then: less focus on picking the manager with the best CV and more on developing coaches in tandem with the players.