The England men's national team is looking for a new head coach after Gareth Southgate ended his eight-year reign.
Over the course of 102 games, three major semifinals in six years and back-to-back European Championship finals, Southgate has restored England to respectability and prominence in the world game.
However, July 14's devastating 2-1 defeat to Spain in the final of Euro 2024 underlined familiar shortcomings against technically gifted opponents. The time felt right for Southgate to end a tenure that, by any reasonable measure, made him the best England manager since 1966 World Cup winner Sir Alf Ramsey.
So who's next for the role once dubbed football's "impossible job"? A vibrant generation of talent including Jude Bellingham. Phil Foden, Bukayo Saka, Cole Palmer and Kobbie Mainoo make it feel like one rife with possibilities… not least the possibility of that tantalising last step of bringing "it" home.
Allow The Sporting News to run you through some of the early frontrunners to succeed Southgate along with a couple of irresistible wildcards.
MORE: Gareth Southgate's England love story
Who will be next England manager? Candidates to replace Gareth Southgate
Below is a list of the most likely replacements for Southgate, plus one or two more optimistic options.
The Sporting News will keep this page updated as new names enter the frame, and others drop out.
Graham Potter
Potter has been out of work since being sacked by Chelsea in April 2023, although his stock remains high as an innovative and forward-thinking tactician from his time at Brighton & Hove Albion. The 49-year-old would tick the box of appointing a homegrown coach and perhaps brings a level of in-game adaptability and acumen that sometimes appeared beyond Southgate.
Whether Potter has the charisma and authority to manage the wider aspects of the job, especially having not had the chance to re-establish himself since his chastening experience at Chelsea, is a valid question.
Lee Carsley
After seeing Luis de la Fuente's Spain swagger to glory, the FA might be tempted by Carsley as a sort of continuity candidate. Not in terms of tactics, with the stylish England Under-21 side he took to Euros glory last year far easier on the eye than what the seniors served up in Germany, but because the former Republic of Ireland midfielder is already in the building.
De la Fuente's success after working with Spain's age-group teams and Southgate's own elevation from first a technical director role and then the U21s shows how this can be a valuable commodity at a time when international management has never felt more different to the day-to-day grind of elite club coaching.
Eddie Howe
The outstanding English candidate alongside Potter, Howe's Newcastle United play the sort of high-pressing, attacking style some fans have come to crave as an antidote to Southgate's natural pragmatism. Unlike Potter, compensation would have to be negotiated with his club side, where Howe might reasonably conclude he is onto a pretty good thing.
During Euro 2024, Southgate cited the familiar issue of England's players being fatigued heading into a summer tournament and how that compromised their pressing. Michel Platini's famous aphorism of English footballers being "lions in the autumn and lambs in the summer" could present Howe's biggest challenge.
Mauricio Pochettino
"If I were to be an international manager one day, I'd relish the opportunity to coach the England national team," former Argentina defender Mauricio Pochettino told Guillem Balague in 2017 for his book Brave New World that charted the coach's transformative tenure at Tottenham. Well, Mauricio, it seems everyone's schedules have aligned.
Pochettino left Chelsea at the end of last season having done a commendable job in strange circumstances, overseeing the blossoming of England's Euro 2024 final goal-scorer Cole Palmer. The 52-year-old's familiarity with English football and high standing with fans in the country could make him a good fit, although his post-Spurs career casts doubt on whether he remains truly elite.
Thomas Tuchel
Another unemployed former Chelsea manager, Tuchel was mentioned in a report by the Guardian as featuring high up on the FA's shortlist of potential candidates. Unquestionably a brilliant tactician, Tuchel collected a disparate Chelsea in 2021 and made them Champions League winners within six months.
However, at Borussia Dortmund, Chelsea and most recently at Bayern Munich, Tuchel fell out with his superiors and it's fair to ask whether the 50-year-old German coach would be temperamentally suited to the unique pressures of the England job.
Pep Guardiola
The dream candidate, not quite the impossibility you might think, but the timeframes don't quite line up. Guardiola has a contract at Manchester City until June 2025, by which point he will have been at the Etihad Stadium for nine seasons. His previous two extensions have been signed in November of 2020 and 2022, once Guardiola had taken the temperature of his squad and how they were responding to him during the early months of a season. In short, he won't be jumping ship to take charge of England against the Republic of Ireland in the UEFA Nations League in September.
However, Guardiola is widely understood to fancy a run at international management at some stage and his support for Catalan self-determination would make working for his native Spain tricky. Could the FA install an interim candidate to keep the seat warm until 2025, giving Guardiola a year to prepare for the 2026 World Cup? Stranger things have happened...
Jurgen Klopp
Along with Guardiola, Klopp has defined an era in English football. His style is one of the dominant ideas in the Premier League, an identity that it would be easy for England's players to embrace and respect. Unlike Guardiola, the former Liverpool boss is out of work and on sabbatical. The United States sounded out Klopp for their own vacancy recently only to be rebuffed. Perhaps the same would happen to the FA, but they'd be crazy not to make the call.
Speaking at the International Coaches' Congress in Wurzburg on July 31, Klopp reiterated his commitment to taking a year away from the game and cast doubt on whether he would ever return to coaching. “No club, no country. Some people must not have heard that part,” he said. “That would be the biggest loss of face in the history of football if I said, 'I'll make an exception for you’.
"I will work at something. I'm too young to just play padel and only spend time with my grandchildren. Will it be coaching again? I would actually rule that out at the moment. We'll see how things look in a few months. Right now, nothing is coming through.”