England football

Bill Shankly? Brian Clough? Jock Stein? No, actually it's, er, um … Philip Neville – two months after his England team, a side that should've been world ...

Now all we need to do is take the best game to all the people – the lack of diversity in both the England side and the English system remains a problem – and we can be as proud of our sport as Phil Neville is of himself. This pedigree – 0 games as manager, 0 successes as coach and 0 experience of women’s football – earned him the England job, an appointment that might’ve been funny were it not to the detriment of a terrific group of players and reflective of the ludicrous privilege that infects football, sport and everything. “The matter will be reviewed on his return.” People are prepared to pay to see top-quality football (umm, Klopp-ball anyway). I wonder how many people would pay, say 25p, to read The Fiver tomorrow” – Alex Brown. Which is to say that whatever happens from here – England are good enough to go all the way, but so are Spain and various other potential opponents – we have, hopefully, seen an innovation that will last, that it’s still impossible to grasp is an innovation: the best jobs going to the best people. – and a barely-believable three conceded – an average of 0.176 a game! Though Spain are missing Alexia Putellas and Jenni Hermoso, their individual skill and possession-heavy style represents a major test for England. But – unlike the men’s side – they are led, not by someone who happened to be around when no one serious wanted the job, but by the best person for it who understands how to blend and balance a team and won’t, at the first sign of pressure, forget that they no longer manage Middlesbrough, nor that their players are good enough to compete with anyone in an open game. Since then, her team have won 15 and drawn two of their 17 games, playing an exciting and coherent brand of football which has yielded a staggering 98 goals scored – an average of 6.53 a game! I’ve got a long way to go but I think with the set of players we’ve got and with my philosophy, I think we can go a long way. Sure enough, nine months after arriving, Moyes and his boys were ejected from Old Trafford, so a year or so later Neville moved to Valencia, serving under Nuno Espírito Santo and then his brother Gary, for the three months it took them to get sacked. And I’m going to continue to keep improving. His coaching career began in 2013 with England U-21 men – they lost all three games at the Euros – and continued at Manchester United, when he joined Steve Round and Jimmy Lumsden in David Moyes’s much-fabled brains trust.