Candidates Who Can Replace Gareth Southgate's Position In The England National Team: Guardiola, Mourinho To The Women's Coach Sarina Wiegman

Illustration of the England national team. (Twitter/@FA)

JAKARTA - The English Football Federation (FA) is starting to look for a replacement candidate for Gareth Southgate in the national team coach who is likely to leave after Euro 2024. The Southgate contract will indeed expire next year and the decision will rely heavily on the performance of the Three Lions in the European championship.

If later Southgate really leaves, the FA will have no trouble finding a replacement because there are several names of quality coaches who are on the radar. One of them is Pep Guardiola.

Guardiola is included in the candidate based on his performance record which also deserves to be taken into account while leading Manchester City and Barcelona FC. In addition, the validity period of his contract with City which will also expire next year is another reason Guardiola is a strong candidate.

So far Guardiola has been a priority to replace Southgate, although so there are also a number of other coaches. Here are nine lists of coaches who can replace Southgate in the England national team.

Sarina Wiegman

The executive chairman of the FA, Mark Bullingham, emphasized that he would not turn a blind eye to the performance of the England women's national team manager, Sarina Wiegman, to become a coach in the men's national team. Wiegman once led Lioness to glory in the 2022 European Cup and also brought his team to the 2023 Women's World Cup Final despite losing to Spain.

Not only that, this Dutch woman also brought the Dutch women national team to win the 2017 European Cup and recorded the same team as runners up at the 2019 Women's World Cup.

His contract with The Lioness itself will only expire in 2025.

Eddie Howe

Newcastle manager Eddie Howe has long been touted as a future England national team coach. The discourse began to stick out when Howe was still in charge of Bournemouth in 2015, where at that time he managed to bring The Cherries promotion to the English Premier League.

The 45-year-old man stole the attention of the public St James' Park while leading The Magpies. Under his tutelage Howe brought Newcastle to finish in the top four last season and then returned to the Champions League.

Graham Potter

Graham Potter has lost his job since his controversial sacking from Chelsea last season. But even so, Potter remains a figure who is reckoned with his experience of having also led Brighton for three seasons.

In fact, FA technical director John McDermott met his colleagues to discuss the successors before the 2022 World Cup and Potter were mentioned as candidates.

Lee Carsley

England U-21 boss Lee Carsley is also a candidate worthy of being reckoned with to fill the England national team coach position. Moreover, Carslet's situation is not much different from Southgate, who was also appointed coach of the Three Lions when he was still leading Young Lions in 2016.

In the England U-21 national team, Carsley was able to bring his team to a stunning victory at Euro 2023. In that summer's performance, Young Lions won every game without a single record conceded.

Steve Cooper

Nottingham Forest manager Steve Cooper enjoys the incredible success and love of fans at the City Ground Stadium. It happened after he was able to lead the club to return to the Premier League after 23 years of absence.

On the other hand, Cooper is also not a foreigner to the England team, because he had held the post of former U-16 and U-17 team coaches. The 43-year-old coach even achieved great success with the team when he won the U-17 World Cup in 2017 and reached the Euro final in the same year.

Jose Mourinho

Jose Mourinho is a coach who has been contested by a large team to be in the team captain's seat. Even though his charm is starting to fade, this does not apply to the England national team who are always interested in the Portuguese tactician.

The Three Lions actually almost collaborated with The Special One in 2017, but at the last second the deal disappeared because the coach's wife changed her mind.

Mou, who won the Champions League title twice, knows everything about English football. Because previously he had also worked for Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham.

Steven Gerrard

The England national team can again recruit some of their great legends to take over the coaching chair, such as Al-Ettifaq manager Steven Gerrard.

Gerrard is currently in Saudi Arabia to make a lot of money. But the offer to lead the national team that has a big challenge is not impossible to convince Gerrard to leave all the money and return to the elite competition.

The 43-year-old coach achieved great success at Rangers and the impressive first year at Aston Villa. His experience even made the Liverpool legend predicted to be Jurgen Klopp's natural successor.

Wayne Rooney

Another legend who understands very well how the demands to become coach of the England national team is former goalscorer Wayne Rooney.

Rooney shows promising signs while on duty at Derby, despite the crisis hitting the club. The Manchester United legend is also shining brightly at the MLS as DC United coach as he was also chosen to manage the All Stars competition to face Arsenal this summer.