HE was England’s most successful manager in half a century and was only a couple of penalty kicks away from being regarded as the greatest of all time.
He has represented the Three Lions, as a player and manager, more often than any other man.
He is a knight of the realm, who is respected in wider society to such a degree that he delivered the prestigious Dimbleby Lecture at the BBC last week.
Yet, at the age of 54, Sir Gareth Southgate may be finished with football.
The former defender was closer than many would believe to becoming Erik ten Hag’s successor at Manchester United.
Dan Ashworth, United’s short-lived sporting director, pushed his candidacy strongly and left the club soon after he failed to persuade United’s ownership.
Meanwhile, Southgate’s advisor Jimmy Worrall also has close links to Ineos chief Sir Jim Ratcliffe.
But the United job was an outlier.
If Southgate did look to return to club management, he would be unlikely to land a job at a higher level than his previous club role at Middlesbrough almost two decades ago.
Despite leading England to successive Euros finals, as well as a World Cup semi and quarter-final — and despite transforming the once-rotten culture around the national team — Southgate’s stock as a manager has not risen significantly.
While the FA are keen to employ Southgate as a consultant, that doesn’t appeal to the former manager, who believes his presence on the payroll would not be beneficial to Thomas Tuchel nor any future Three Lions boss.
The idea of returning to media punditry is regarded similarly.
New England chief Tuchel may have criticised the performance of Southgate’s team at last summer’s Euros — although he only really echoed Southgate’s own public comments during that tournament.
But Sir Gareth will not be responding in kind. He is too classy and decent to give it back to Tuchel.
There is also a feeling that international management, rather than the club game, suited Southgate perfectly.
Most great club managers are single-minded football obsessives.
Southgate has a more curious mind and the England role allowed him a wider remit, which he relished.
The themes he expressed in his Dimbleby Lecture — on the challenges facing young men in the social media age — are dear to him.
He helped many England players greatly, as people as well as footballers.
And if Southgate headed back into football management any time soon, he would do so without his hugely-trusted No 2 Steve Holland — who is keen to make it as a manager in his own right and is currently the boss of Japanese club Yokohama F Marinos.
Southgate always regarded his England role as a partnership with Holland, believing the pair counteracted each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
He may feel isolated in management without Holland’s presence.
A boardroom job in football isn’t on the agenda either.
He may have looked good in a waistcoat during the 2018 World Cup but, professionally speaking, a tracksuit is more Southgate’s style.
So what next, if there is no return to football?
The Dimbleby Lecture — given on the personal request of BBC director-general Tim Davie — wasn’t his first weighty speech since his exit.
Southgate showed during his England reign he is a more effective politician than most politicians. His ‘Dear England’ letter before the Euros in 2021 spoke to the nation better than anyone in the House of Commons could.
But there is apparently no chance of a bid for Parliament.
Despite being branded as ‘woke’ — an insult which shouldn’t even be an insult — Southgate isn’t party political.
He’d probably have more in common with Sir John Major than Jeremy Corbyn.
That Dimbleby Lecture championed traditional family values as well as Southgate’s deep respect for the military.
He is a quiet patriot, not a raving lefty and not even close friends could tell you which way he votes.
As for a job in business, Southgate is said to be equally uninterested.
Unlike many in football he isn’t an obsessive chaser of the next five-pound note.
He doesn’t need to work but equally recognises that even a senior job in industry would only pay a fraction of that on offer in managing a lowly Premier League club.
And anyway Southgate is patriotic and old-school enough to have regarded the England job as the pinnacle of his profession.
Should his journey of self-discovery lead him away from the game which made him, he would be a great loss to football.
Fighting relegation, as he did unsuccessfully at Middlesbrough in 2009, isn’t currently on his wish-list either.
Had Southgate landed the United job he wouldn’t have been a popular appointment among supporters — despite doing the kind of transformative job with England that they are crying out for at Old Trafford.
And the sad truth is he wouldn’t be welcomed with widespread jubilation at any top-flight club.
His image as an overly-cautious manager is overstated but not entirely untrue.
He never played for nor managed clubs which expected to win silverware and never quite shook off that mindset as expectations rose with England.
So what next for a man who is significantly younger than most who have just departed England’s ‘impossible job’?
Having succeeded the likes of Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and King Charles in giving that Dimbleby Lecture, Sir Gareth is yet to find his calling, post-England.
But should his journey of self-discovery lead him away from the game which made him, he would be a great loss to football.
Flair’s fair for Ange
THERE was much online merriment when a Tottenham legends team — featuring Dimitar Berbatov, Jermain Defoe, Robbie Keane and Aaron Lennon — hammered AC Milan’s old boys 6-2.
The obvious joke, that the veterans could still beat Ange Postecoglou’s first team, was barely even funny because it is possibly true.
Yet the flair of some of those Spurs players of the not-too-distant past also showed that Postecoglou’s devil-may-care style was more in tune with the club’s ethos than most of his recent predecessors.
The expectation is that Spurs will wilt in a hostile atmosphere against Eintracht Frankfurt in next month’s Europa League quarter-final and that will spell the end for Big Ange.
If so, that would be a shame. Spurs might not be very good under Postecoglou but at least they are recognisably Spurs.
IT was so sad to see Scotland relegated from the top tier of the Nations League by virtue of a 3-0 loss at home to Greece.
And the poor old Tartan Army couldn’t even get a drink at Hampden Park.
Despite their great national thirst, booze is still banned inside grounds north of the border, as it has been since 1981 — just about the last time the Scots were any good at football.
Lennox all Hart
THE warm tributes to The Sun’s legendary ‘Voice of Boxing’ Colin Hart — who died on Saturday aged 89 — were rich, poignant and greatly appreciated by his family.
It was especially interesting to read the words of Lennox Lewis and how he felt driven to win over a sceptical Harty on his journey to becoming heavyweight champion of the world.
The media landscape has changed hugely since Lewis and Colin enjoyed their verbal sparring en route to an immense mutual respect.
There are now often too many obstructive PR people between elite athletes and journalists.
As Lewis agrees, that is to the detriment of sportsmen and women, as well as to the media and the public.
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