There was only one time Phil Neville looked uncertain yesterday during a series of interrogations about the England women’s job, and that was not over old tweets but when he was asked to name the top scorer in the Women’s Super League. He stopped, gazed at the ceiling, faltered before asking: “It’s not Izzy, is it?”
He could console himself that at least he was on the right track — Izzy Christiansen is top of the charts for Manchester City — and be relieved that questions had turned to matters of football rather than a harsh examination of character for something written on social media seven years ago.
For Neville, what will ultimately count is not a few regrettable tweets, for which he apologised again yesterday, but what he can do as a football manager; specifically, whether he can take England higher than third in the world.
Gareth Southgate plays down expectations with the men’s team; Neville fuelled them enthusiastically around the England women, some might say dangerously so, when he declared: “Finishing third is not in my mind. When we go to the World Cup, the Olympics or the European Championship I want to finish first.”
He insists the players have the will, and talent, to follow him “on the last stage of Everest” to the top of the world.
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There are some within the women’s game who would warn him that, while there is no harm in dreaming big, in reality England’s ranking probably flatters them. They are not in the same class as the United States and Germany, the world’s top two, and need more players of outstanding flair to improve.
Baroness Campbell of Loughborough, the head of women’s football for the FA, said that it had taken “courage” for Neville to take the job as head coach given that improving on third will not be easy. The scale of the task may quickly become apparent in Neville’s first matches at the SheBelieves Cup in the United States in March given that France (ranked sixth), Germany and the US are his first three opponents.
With his name, and his tweets, there will be plenty of scrutiny but then Neville and the rest of the Class of ’92 are not known for seeking a quiet life. In the past fortnight, Ryan Giggs has become manager of Wales, David Beckham has confirmed his plans to build a new club in Miami and Neville has stepped far out of his comfort zone into the women’s game.
He will not fail for lack of worth ethic, leaving his family in Valencia to see out the rest of the academic year, while he throws himself into the job. Neville attended two WSL games at the weekend in a necessary crash-course but said: “I’m a fast learner. I don’t know every facet, but I will. When I went to Spain, I knew three Valencia players, didn’t know the language, didn’t know La Liga. But after three months, I knew every player, everything about Spain and was fluent in six months.”
As for his suitability for the job, Neville acknowledged that he had been approached by the FA after a number of candidates had withdrawn but insisted that it was still a rigorous process over several weeks, including a “seven-hour presentation to the FA board” on his vision for the team, plans to grow the women’s game and to help develop more female coaches.
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There was another three-hour grilling on technical and tactical knowledge plus psychometric tests and background checks which had not brought up the tweets because the search had not included the necessary key words.
Neville said the job offer was like taking the call from Terry Venables for his first England cap. “I feel blessed, I feel lucky, I feel pride and I feel excitement because playing for England was the greatest thing I did.”
Neville said that his dressing room would be built on “trust, honesty, hard work, humility” as well as “a relentless, ruthless pursuit of excellence”.
At least one former England player has warned that managing women is different from managing men, but Neville demurred and said that his experience with elite male players made him well qualified.
“The runs that I want the centre forward to make, Jodie Taylor, will be same messages I sent to Robin van Persie. It’s football, and anyone that thinks differently is being disrespectful to the women’s game.”
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And so he begins with his challenge to reach the top. One of the first messages he had was from his sister, Tracey, coach of the England netball team. “I got a text from another coach saying, ‘Race you to No 1,’ ” Neville revealed. “That was Tracey.” England’s netballers, like the women footballers, are third in the world.
The race has begun, Neville pulling into his car-park space at St George’s Park before 8am yesterday. “Mine is next to Gareth’s,” he said. “I’ve got the next-best job.”
Someone asked if succeeding with the women’s team would put him in frame for managing the men one day. Wisely he said that he had enough to be getting on with. As for Twitter, he had always planned to come off it when he went into management. “I enjoyed it on Twitter,” he said, “but this is serious business.”
Tough start for Neville
England (3) v France (6)
Sun March 4
Germany (2) v England (3)
Thur March 8
USA (1) v England (3)
