Former England manager Gareth Southgate has revealed he turned to music to help him deal with the pain of leaving his job.
The 54-year-old resigned after eight years in charge following England’s 2-1 defeat to Spain in the Euro 24 final in July.
But it wasn’t the Three Lions or Vindaloo football anthems I was listening to. It was an Adele love song.
Southgate, up for knighthood in the New Year Honours, says he played his hit Someone Like You over and over again after deciding to quit.
On today’s Desert Island Discs show, he tells host Lauren Laverne: “I kept playing it towards the end of the Euros because I knew I was going to leave. “I’d already made up my mind.
In the 2011 hit, Adele sings: “Nothing compares, no worries and worries, regrets and mistakes, they’re memories made.” Who would have imagined what a bittersweet taste this would have?
Gareth Southgate turned to music to overcome the pain of leaving his job as England manager.
Southgate revealed that he regularly played Adele’s 2011 hit Someone Like You towards the end of his tenure.
Southgate says that although the song is about the end of a love story, every time he hears it, it reminds him of his role in England.
“There are so many words in it that, even if I hear them today, they relate to my relationship with England and their relationship with me and how I feel about it,” he reveals.
“They (the song lover) have to move on, you wish them the best and there are regrets, but in reality they are memories that were created.”
“There are so many lines within that really resonate with me.”
The father-of-two, who chose the song as one of his eight Castaway albums, is known to be a big fan of Adele and appeared in the star’s An Audience With… at the London Palladium in 2021.
Now adjusting to life outside football, Southgate says he has no intention of becoming a “background” manager when his successor Thomas Tuchel takes over in the New Year.
“That chapter of my life is now closed,” he says. ‘He will always live with me. “There will always be a part that will be difficult to give up and I also have to recognize that the team now has to move on and I have to give them as much space as possible.”
He adds: “I’m sure there will be times in the future when I will be quoted about the team, but I’m going to try to avoid that as much as I can.” I would never want to get in the way.’
Since leaving, he reveals, he has consulted other public figures about how they dealt with major changes in their own lives, but he refuses to identify his advisors.
Southgate applauds fans after England lost 2-1 to Spain in UEFA Euro 2024 final
He says: “I have been a player and coach for 37 years and I am not against the next stage of my life being something totally different.”
Southgate, whose choices include songs by U2, Ed Sheeran and Stormzy, also says he has no regrets about the controversy caused by England players kneeling before matches.
“I alienated the people who supported me before that,” he says. “But I felt it was an important message for young people.”
Desert Island Discs is on BBC Radio 4 today at 10am and on BBC Sounds.