The 'best team' Anthony Gordon's played in, a new role for Cole Palmer and complex tactics: What it's REALLY like working for the cap-wearing Irishman who could be England's next manager

The manager’s office at Coventry City’s stadium is just off the side of the dressing rooms and, 11 years ago, Lee Carsley stood in there alone listening to the players he was in caretaker charge of.

Half-time against Swindon. Coventry led by a goal, massively against the run of play. They were overrun and Carsley couldn’t work out how their opponents were lined up. He heard players screaming at each other and didn’t know what to do.

‘I knew myself, in that moment, I was miles off it,’ he reflected with Mail Sport last year. ‘I’m thinking, “my God, I can’t work it out”. You go in… “you need to get tighter, work harder, play with more passion”.

‘It would only have taken one of them, “well, what are they doing?” and I would’ve been snookered. I couldn’t have gone up to the tactics board and showed them. I had an awareness that if I’m not careful, I’ll get elevated beyond my capability and the game will spit me out.’

Coventry eventually lost 2-1 and that story is why Carsley is at this particular juncture at this particular moment. Eleven years on, a genuine and deserved candidate to succeed Gareth Southgate as leader of his country, up against the likes of Eddie Howe, Graham Potter and Mauricio Pochettino. 

He has revealed that bluffing a way into Championship, or even Premier League, jobs wouldn’t have proven too difficult yet realises none of them were bound to last.

Swindon made him think of how best to attack coaching and that meant properly learning the craft, moulding players at Brentford, Manchester City, Birmingham City and then England in different guises. He’s taken bits from everywhere, describing watching Pep Guardiola’s sessions as the equivalent of peaking behind the curtain at the end of the Wizard of Oz. He saw there were no special tricks, just simple instructions to the point.

And now he stands as one of the preeminent development coaches in the United Kingdom, delivering a first European Championship at Under-21 level since 1984.

FA technical director John McDermott is known to be a significant admirer and has since seen Carsley stay loyal after a plethora of offers from elsewhere.

Winning it is one thing but the way that was done over the course of three weeks in Georgia was something entirely different. This looked like a Carsley team, a style England want to identify with and that vindicates the millions spent on St George’s Park. Ideally, it’s a place to nurture talent on the pitch and in the dugout. It seems that has been achieved in recent seasons.

The game plans were front foot, brave on the ball, stoic at the back – not conceding a goal throughout the tournament, albeit helped by James Trafford’s last-minute penalty save in the final against Spain. The diminutive Angel Gomes started as a sitting midfielder; Anthony Gordon a false nine. At one point, Cole Palmer operated in deep central midfield, although he argues about quite how deep.

There was an identity, breaking lines through midfield, a rotation in positioning. Tactically complex, evidence that even with limited coaching time English players can adapt to the sort of football deployed at the very highest level. If Carsley can do it with teenagers, he can do it with seasoned professionals. At the moment, most of the above seem an alien concept to the Three Lions.

‘This might be the best footballing team I’ve played in, in terms of how we play and the combination play around the box,’ said Gordon, the tournament’s top scorer. ‘It’s really at an elite level. For me, that’s down to Lee.’

Levi Colwill, who also went on to earn senior recognition, spoke about how he saw himself as an attacker when in possession and the freedom afforded to them. And each answer from all of them, to whatever point was being made, was the same: it was because of Carsley, the man who took every session in a trusty cap to protect him from the sun.

There were very few people who actually witnessed these performances – beating Germany, knocking out Portugal, out-Spaining Spain – after no broadcaster picked up the Euros rights. So the name of Lee Carsley, a functional central midfielder in his day and a Republic of Ireland international, is unlikely to stir the soul of a public that failed to shake suspicions of Southgate’s lack of elite experience.

He's an FA man after seven years with them as well. So too is Didier Deschamps, who hasn’t done badly in France. Lionel Scaloni had a go with Argentina’s Under 20s before then lifting the World Cup and Copa America. 

Carsley’s journey is not too dissimilar to Spain’s triumphant Luis de la Fuente either and while there isn’t a one size fits all to what makes a winning coach in international football, something must be said of somebody who has pre-existing positive relationships with the burgeoning talents.