How getting the boot from Middlesbrough was the making of Southgate

He would never have envisaged it turning out this way. Ten years ago, at such a low ebb, how could Gareth Southgate have pictured such a transformation?

A big anniversary is approaching for England’s manager, though it is not one to which he has given much thought. The business of securing qualification for Euro 2020 has been all-consuming, but when he gets a moment to contemplate, he will understand the significance.

In October 2009, Southgate was manager of Middlesbrough. He was 39 then and had held the position for three years. He had been through a lot, not least the trauma of relegation from the Premier League, but that autumn things seemed to be moving smoothly.

Middlesbrough were fourth in the Championship, but on the night of October 20, after overseeing a 2-0 win at the Riverside Stadium against Derby, Southgate was summoned by chairman Steve Gibson to his private box and bluntly told he was sacked. The news was as unexpected as it was rattling.

‘Anyone who has been through that, no matter what you earn or what you have achieved in your life, it is a blow to the ego,’ he once told Sportsmail. ‘Of course you are sore but you become hardened by the experience.’

That sacking could have ended his managerial career and that is no exaggeration. Young coaches can be seen as damaged goods when they lose one job, and in the weeks that followed Southgate feared as much when a couple of applications for interviews met with no response.

Out of football for the first time in his life and ‘getting under the wife’s feet’, he began the process of rebuilding down at his local leisure centre, with his social group being a group of pensioners with whom he shared cups of coffee.

Southgate, though, was too shrewd an operator to be lost to the game and, in some respects, what happened at Middlesbrough could actually have been the best thing that ever happened to him.It forced him to study, to immerse himself in football and reflect on the areas he could improve.

Ask him now and Southgate will tell you honestly he did not handle situations with Gaizka Mendieta and George Boateng, older Middlesbrough players, as he should have done. Boateng was a long-standing friend and former team-mate but did not react well to being dropped.

There was, according to Southgate, some ‘fracturing’ in his relationship with Boateng. The pair didn’t speak for a while but they have now cleared the air and been able to move on. The experience, nonetheless, was salutary.

If his man-management lacked polish then, it is not the case now. Those in this England squad will tell you how he has established an all-inclusive nature in the camp. Inevitably, some players will not get any minutes in Prague or Sofia but it won’t stop Southgate making them feel part of everything.

‘When you’ve got a manager you feel you can be open with and talk to like that, it’s better,’ said Leicester midfielder James Maddison. ‘He’s an easy guy to talk to and we speak a lot, about football in general. He puts trust into young players and long may that continue.’

Trust is a key word. Many would have wondered, having been dismissed from a high-profile role, whether Southgate would earn another chairman’s trust but he found an ally in Sir Trevor Brooking at the FA, who wanted him to help with youth development, and that was crucial.

‘I am grateful to Trevor for pinpointing me as someone who could work within the organisation,’ he said, during his time in charge of the Under 21s.

‘I think it was because he knew I want the best interests of English football and wanted to maintain the standards he had.’

Southgate would never have dared to dream that, within a decade, his fortunes would have transformed so much that he has made England popular again, taken the national team to a World Cup semi-final and now stands on the brink of guiding them into another major tournament.

He is not the kind of man who likes to reflect on past episodes or dwell on achievements, but Southgate would be excused if, this once, he spent a few moments thinking about October 2009 and the meeting with Gibson. He will see it was the incident that helped define his managerial career.