Gareth Southgate 'the future of football coaching', says Chelsea Warr of UK Sport
Wednesday 28 November 2018 20:08, UK
England manager Gareth Southgate is the "future of coaching in football", according to UK Sport's director of performance Chelsea Warr.
Southgate was the keynote speaker at the elite funding agency's annual conference for Great Britain's Olympic and Paralympic athletes, coaches and leaders held in Manchester on Tuesday.
He spoke for 45 minutes about how he prepared England for the World Cup this summer and why he did not consider their fourth-place finish in Russia to be a big success.
"He didn't talk about winning, he talked about people, culture and simplifying things," said Warr.
"He said the key to what they achieved in Russia was all about preparation.
"He's clearly a values-driven guy and he's very humble. He stood up in front of his peers and talked about the various lessons he's learned from other sports and he was really impressive.
"He also explained how the team went from 15th in the world to fifth but that is not the end goal and the best part of the journey will be the hardest, which is something Team GB and Paralympics GB know all about.
"He said it was really important for him not to make coming fourth this summer a big success - he wasn't interested in an open-top bus parade for reaching the semi-finals and he joked that fourth isn't even on the podium in our world."
Warr, who joined the agency in 2005 and oversees its investment in potential medallists, explained that Southgate has been part of UK Sport's Elite Coaching programme for the last three years and is due to complete the course in April.
"We see him quite regularly and we're lucky to have him as part of our system," added Warr.
