Roy Hodgson On THAT Iceland Loss, Getting The Liverpool Call & The Greats Of England

0:00Queen Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun. An army hung on her every word. My champions! I have sold my chariot on Carvana! T 'was a lovely SUV, an inexplicably queenly offer. They're even coming to the castle to collect it! Tonight, we feast! An offer you can feast on. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up these, may I fly. Somewhere out there is a Chevy truck. And the person who drives it, well, that's a Chevy person. You probably know one. Your buddy. Your sister. Ones who always show up. They're the first to rise, the last to leave. They always have that little extra something. And maybe you've got it too.

0:49Chevrolet. Together let's drive. Visit chevy.com slash trucks to explore the lineup.

1:08Alan Shearer:Hello and welcome to The Rest is Football with me, Gary Lineker. On today's episode, we're going to play part two of our interview with Roy Hodgson. Enjoy. Welcome back to The Rest is Football with me, Gary Lineker. And today, Roy Hodgson has joined us. It's a long and illustrious career. We were just talking about Fulham and that European Cup run in the Europa League. And so close, wasn't it? So close to winning that. That would have been an amazing achievement. Yeah, we got to, I think, within seven or eight minutes of penalties, really, after coming from behind. And I thought we were going quite well at the time.

1:50And funnily enough, we fancied ourselves on penalties because we had Schwarz and they only had De Gea. We didn't know much about De Gea. A young goalkeeper turned out to be one of the best of the Premier League's ever seen. By the time, we didn't know that, but we knew our one. Schwarzler was really good. We thought we could win this, but it was really unfortunate. It was almost an own goal, actually, from Vreda. But to be fair, the fans didn't hold it against us anyway.

2:18Alan Shearer:No, far from it. I think it was probably one of the most glorious times of Fulham's history to go that close in European football. So Liverpool, do you regret going there? Because it was after a period where they'd been incredibly successful for a long time and it was part of the period, possibly a little bit like Manchester United are going through now, where things were different, things had changed. And obviously now they've turned things around, it's taken a long time and the club's been run well again. Was it? Sure. Was it? I suppose you can't. How do you turn down Liverpool? No, that's the bottom line really.

2:53I mean, I was aware. And in fact, Martin Broughton, who'd been brought in to sell the club with Christian Bursler, he actually said to me, so you do realise that I'm getting letters every week from these sort of clubs, what were they calling these groups, fan groups, saying we want Kenny Dalgles, you know, we don't want Royals, we don't want a Londoner up here and so on. You were aware of that, weren't you? Yeah, he made me aware of it, really. And I was certainly aware when I went in there because I replaced someone, Benitez, who'd been very successful and very popular. And of course, we start off poorly and we don't win games.

3:28So, you know, it's one of those storms that are waiting to happen. I don't think I dealt with it very well. If I think back to, really, in what way? Well, I think Carragher summed it up, really. He said, you're a big mistake. He said, you know, you came in also wanting to coach us. We'd just been coached for three years by Benitez. maybe someone who came in with a softer, more human approach and less coaching-oriented. But of course, again, I'd had a lot of success during that period. So I think that I didn't research mentally, right, what is this job? What am I going into? What's it going to need?

4:11What are they going to expect? What would the players want? I just went in, right, this is what I've been doing. It's been working. Let's keep it going, which was obviously a mistake. it's one of those mistakes which I have to forgive myself in a way simply because I don't know how I could have washed away the feelings and the work that got me there in order to maybe start to let's start again here you know so I don't think I did very well but it was a bit of a

4:40Alan Shearer:if you go into a club like that you've got to start I mean really patience and you talked about that as your career progresses perhaps as time goes on and the way football has changed so much you get less and less time to actually plan something. I mean the first thing the new owners did when they came over of course not really knowing much about the club or they went around to all these you know supporter clubs and these these Splinter groups you know well what do you think we got the right man of course they were getting all the information no we're not he's no good we should have done this and that was being backed up on the field because we weren't winning the team actually wasn't really very good at that stage.

5:21We'd lost Torres, of course, who was left of that team. There was Jamie, I suppose. There was a Vane that was still there. Stephen, of course, was still there. Stephen Gerrard. But I mean, really, you weren't talking about the great Liverpool team that had done so well. There was many players, if I mentioned their names, your people would have forgotten them or not even known about them. But that's not an excuse. I don't think I did it very well. I say if you had your time again what would you do differently you'd take it you wouldn't have taken it oh you would oh yeah absolutely but would you have done something differently

5:57Alan Shearer:or is I think probably it would have been sensible to try and get I mean I always thought that Jamie Carrigan Stephen Gerrard were on board with what we were trying to do there was no problem with that but I might have tried to get more out of them look how's it been you know what have you not liked you know what do you think needs to be changed here and we even get their ideas about some of the players on that as well, you know, but I did it very much as the old-fashioned manager, head coach, my responsibility, I've got to do it. I think I'd have done that. I don't know, you've got to coach the team.

6:31We've had to coach the team. We'd have had to try and get the team playing in the right way. But no, I wouldn't have turned the job down because of fears. I'd have gone in and failed. That's the way it is. Yeah, and how hard is that?

6:47Alan Shearer:How tough was it? And to deal with, because people, you know, obviously the critical of them are the man, he's got to do this, he's got to do that. But you're a human being, you're a person, and you're on the receiving end at certain times during, you know, the ups and downs of your career. How hard is it when things are not going well? it is hard it is it's hard to get the perspective I mean I'm doing this interview with you what are we talking about it was 2010 so we're talking 15 years ago that's a lot of time to develop some perspective that's a lot of time to grow up and get a different person but at the time you don't have that of course and it was hard because I honestly thought that was going to be my last job basically you know it had gone extremely well when I came back to England And from Finland in 2008, I was planning to not go to Fulham.

7:41I was planning to go back to Inter and work with Massimo Mbarrati as some sort of, I don't know, right-hand man, as it were. So I wasn't even planning to continue. Now, here I am, 2008. Now we've gone through to two years later. Good years, you know. The Finland years went extremely well. The Fulham years went extremely well. you want a bit of a cloud and a high I was even being touted as a potential manager before I went to Liverpool so all those things were like happening so then when you have this enormous deflation as it were that you think Did you start to doubt yourself or not at all? Yeah you probably do but I mean it was sufficiently late in my career that I'd planned to retire in actual fact two or three years earlier.

8:32So it wouldn't have been the end of the world if I'd retired then instead of three years earlier. I'm glad I didn't because it gave me this incredible period afterwards. But I don't know. I doubt myself now more thinking back on it perhaps than I did at the time. But I wasn't keen necessarily to go straight back into work. But it was very fortunate I did because Dan Ashworth was very persuasive to get me to West Brom. And that turned out to be another very good couple of years, which led to the England job. So I was very fortunate that he did. And I didn't just say, well, Liverpool was going to be the one.

9:09Liverpool was going to be the crowning glory of the career. It didn't work out. Now I'll stop, which could easily have happened, I think, at the time.

9:18Alan Shearer:Do you ever get down mentally when that happens? Yeah, of course you do, I suppose. I come from a generation, I suppose, which doesn't like to think you suffer it in silence and you suffer it because you realize I'm meant to suffer this. This is the way things are. You know, when this happens, I'm afraid suffering is going to be involved. So now it's your turn to take some. It would be naive or dishonest to say, no, no, I didn't suffer. So I'm sure I did. But that's when your wife and family or the close friends you have around you, they play such an important part because they're the ones that keep you, to some extent, on a more even key of one.

10:02And secondly, they can stop you, you know, really wallowing too much. It's only football. Well, that's right.

10:09Alan Shearer:It is really. I mean, it's mad how important it is to us, but it is football. It's like life becomes more important after you've had a serious operation where you realize that maybe my life won't go on much longer. I think people need to be reminded of these things. But, of course, if you're in it, and as we both have been for our lives, really, you know that, and intellectually you have no problem accepting it. But, of course, when you're caught up in the milestone of it, then it's very, very difficult. Absolutely. I always say it's the one ever-present in my life. you know you lose parents have gone now kids have been around half your life or whatever but football's always been there always absolutely right yeah and in a strange way it's England that must have been a proud moment getting offered the job yeah very proud moment yeah it was a wonderful time really I enjoyed so much of it until you get to the tournaments and we did we did okay until the actual tournament came around and then we couldn't somehow find the results we needed.

11:20Alan Shearer:Why do you think that was? I mean, I don't think you particularly had a golden era in terms of talent. I think that had just gone, the kind of golden generation was just coming towards the end. And also looking at the team in a whole, I don't think it was, it's certainly not like the squad that England have got at present, but whatever the squads, why is it that England can't get over the line? Or do you just think it will come at some point? I think it will come. I think a lot of the pressure that the players feel is no doubt produced from the expectations. The press, of course, drive out the expectations.

11:58But that would be the same in Spain and Italy and Brazil and Argentina. Absolutely. But maybe their players have got somehow better at coming to terms with it. I don't know. I mean, it's very difficult. I don't know that one can ever give a really honest assessment of that. We should have done better, I think. we had good players there's no doubt there were some very good players out there but somehow or other we weren't able to bring about the performances you know there's always luck involved you know in a tournament you know you've been in enough of them that that first result and for example the one in the was it the World Cup with Italy yes it was in the World Cup one with Italy you know we played them and I thought we played well that day I thought we were clearly better but you lose it and then suddenly you're on the back foot and then you go against Italy that game yeah and then you go to the next game and the pressure's on and you're playing this El Paolo and you lose it really to a goal which you'd like to see disallowed because it you know it flicks it flicks it's a heading duel between Stephen Gerrard and a midfield player it flicks off Stephen's head and the offside player is given not offside because it came off your own player you know So you do get a lot of margins, but you've got to be very good, I think, to get beyond all those margins.

13:21And at the moment, the one thing we don't seem to be able to do is shrug off when the margin is not on our side and get going again. Like the teams you mentioned, Spain in particular, who've been quite outstanding in everything.

13:34Alan Shearer:That took them a long time, really, to get successful. And then the idea of 2008, 2012. I do think we're getting better. I do think it's getting closer. And producing better footballers overall, I think. Oh, absolutely. I think the way players are taught in this country now is so much better than it used to be. Absolutely. And technically now, our technicians are a bit as good as the Spanish, the Italians and all the ones we've admired their techniques in the past. We've bridged that gap. So I think it's a matter of time, really. How does someone get told that they're going to be the England coach?

14:07Alan Shearer:What happens? Do you get a call from like – how does it happen to be? I've got the call from – Do you get summons? Do you have to have an interview? Who do you? They just tell you. I got the call from the West Virginia chairman. After we played Ashton Villa, which was quite a big game for us at home. And I think we'd drawn it. And I'd actually driven home after the game because our son was over visiting. So I drove back to Richmond to have Sunday lunch with them, my wife and my son. And the phone rang. It was Jeremy Peace. and I thought he wanted to talk about the game. Although having said that, he never did.

14:46So it was a little bit surprising to get a phone call. You thought you were getting sacked, but you were going quite well. No, I didn't think that. I knew at the time they were trying to get me to sign a new contract, which I was holding back on. He said, England want to speak to you, the England FA want to speak to you. I said, oh, are they holding interviews? He said, no. He said, they just want you to go up tomorrow and speak to them at Wembley. so I went up and met David Bernstein and Trevor Brookings and all the others and you know it was just a conversation really you know we've decided now that we'd like you to do the job and there you go and we negotiated a conversation it was wonderful it was a wonderful day I should never forget that one

15:25Alan Shearer:yeah there's a burden though isn't there as well like a weight of a nation on your shoulders yeah of course although you probably didn't feel that way you can't be selected for England as a player You can't get the accolade of being asked to be the manager without accepting. This is a big, big burden. It might go very well. I might become a very popular legendary figure like Al Famsi, or I might be more like I am as someone who had the job but didn't succeed in it. That's the way you have to accept it. The vast majority have ended up in that way. Yeah. You can always try and put a gloss on it in the fact that I didn't lose many games.

16:07But it doesn't matter not losing many games, you've got to win the ones that are important. And I say you didn't win them.

16:13Alan Shearer:No, the Iceland game must be... Yeah, that must be the tough one to deal with. Yes, I don't think I'll ever really get over that one, of course. You know, it seemed to be one of those days where if it can go wrong, it does go wrong. And it started badly with the injury in the warm-up, poor pitch. I don't know, everything just seemed to be wrong about it. We just, and it started, we got such a good start to it, you know, with the penalty. Yeah. No, that was, that's one I'm afraid I shall have to live with. And if I don't want to depress myself, try and pull it out of my mind as often as possible.

16:50Alan Shearer:All right. We won't linger on that one. No, I won't linger on it. I mean, you walked straight away after that, didn't you? Well, I couldn't tell you that. I know, but you also made. Yeah, I made it clear that, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to sit here and hope that I don't, I don't expect to be offered a new contract. I don't deserve to be offered a new contract after this result. So quite simply, you know. What were the players like, England players, to deal with generally? I mean, like you said, I think they want to play for the country. I think we started to introduce a few things which suited them better, like the choice of hotels where we weren't isolated, where they have a bit of free time, they could walk out in the evening, they could, you know, see other people and so on.

17:34And so we started to try and loosen that up a little bit. But, of course, what you do is, and it often amuses me when I see managers going into new jobs and talking about their philosophies and their mantras. But I think probably in the four years, one of the biggest mantras, which in fact grew as we got closer to the end of the four years and closer to the World Cup, was the one about playing without fear. playing without fear trusting yourself trusting trusting your teammates we all know what we're doing you know you just do your job trust him to do his don't have fear don't think about consequences just think about your job all of those things and you say them and the players never say no that's rubbish I don't believe that's right all you're doing by saying that is instilling them with fear probably yeah well that's a possibility you know that'd be interesting we had a very good psychologist with us the way, stay with us with it.

18:32I mean, blimey. We did all the things that we thought we could do to help in that respect, but all the things around the three lions and what the three lions stand for and how does a lion approach its prey. We did all of that, really. But at the end of the day…

18:52Alan Shearer:Ultimately, you've got to pass the ball to each other and knock it in the net. You go across a little white line, the referee blows a whistle, 90 minutes later, you might as well not have bothered to say a word. So was that the lowest point perhaps of your footballing career? Yeah, I think it probably is. What was the highest point? Well, there's been lots of them, but none in the sense of, well, that was when we won the World Cup. Well, not many people can say that. It's been a lot of sustained periods of quite good success. and within those peers of success there'll be little highlights here and there but I can't really point out one real obvious highlight like one can point out the one failure that hurt the most with England against Iceland I totally understand that Let's take a quick break we'll be back with Roy in just a few seconds

19:52Alan Shearer:Crystal Palace I mean it's obviously the club of your childhood and you ended up going there after the England job so Phil was getting excited now because he likes Crystal Palace he likes my dog over there but Crystal Palace yeah a bit more of a labour of love perhaps no it was good I mean I enjoyed it I mean the 17 to 21 I mean it was tough because you know Steve Price was doing an excellent job trying to keep that club going the owners from America would come in Josh and David Josh Harris and David Blitzer would come in and put some money into the club but that had been spent on players they were there when I got there you know the Benteckes and the Caballers and the Connor Wickhams and all these guys they'd actually been bought and money had been spent so really during that four seasons between 17 and 21 we were lingering when I went there we were right at the very bottom but it was four years really of lingering, if you like, trying to keep the team as afloat as it could possibly be and as high as you could be with a group of players who I really enjoyed working with and I thought were outstanding, many of whom were much better than they're credited for.

21:08But we weren't really able to spend the money which enabled us to break forward like happened when Patrick Riella came in after I left. So really when I went back for the two times, it's been a bit different because when I've gone back the second time and you say I mean we bought Eze that was one of the things we did the two we bought Eze and Mateta I suppose two you could say where some money was spent that was before I left in 2021 spent well I might say yeah well Doug Freeman he deserves a medal if you look at the team now and the players I mean it's he's really put the club at a different financial level because he got them all I mean not to mention the very many we just missed out on or could have had would the money have been there that you know Steve would have done it too had he been able to get the money together but the Americans unfortunately didn't back him any more to the extent they'd done when they first came in It's hard isn't it

22:03Alan Shearer:for a club like Christopheis I put them on the par with Leicester and Leicester did the miracle didn't they and you start going well and then you see it now like as we talk Marguerite looks like he might go to Liverpool by the time you hear this he might already be there or he might not have gone to Liverpool I suspect he probably was they've just lost Eze that you've just talked about at Elyse of course at Elyse what a wonderfully talented player he has so clubs like Crystal Palace I mean the goal really realistically is just to stay a Premier League club and it's tough isn't it to keep that year after year which they've managed to do now and you were largely responsible for that as well yeah I think I'm actually quite satisfied with that period I mean what we did and what we were given I think we made the most of it I think that the players who took part in all that should feel very proud of their achievements there because not only did we, I mean, every year, I think the worst was 14th and the best was 11th.

23:01That's where we were in the four seasons. But I mean, the bottom line is in that time, we weren't losing money. Money could be put aside to build the academy. The academy was built and really made into a very, very good academy. I mean, the work on the new stadium was being mooted and being prepared for. So all of those things were happening, which I think was a good platform, as it were. But when I went back, it was very different. I mean, the team, the quality of the team was very, very good. I was unlucky in my final when I went back for that about March 24. I lost both Alise and Eze for the bulk of the time.

23:41And that would have made an enormous difference to it. How talented are those two?

23:46Alan Shearer:I want to talk to you a bit more about some of the players that you've managed, but those two, let's start while we're on the circuit. Outstanding, both. Both outstanding. And of course, when you've got players like that in your group, and we have Wilf as well, I don't forget, Wilf's still there as well, so when you've got three players like quality, that gives you a real chance because there's goals in the team. In that four years, if there's any criticism which could, you know, honestly and correctly be aimed at us, you don't score enough goals. Well, we didn't. It wasn't because we didn't work at scoring goals, but we didn't work.

24:17No, it wasn't. Well, we don't train with scoring goals.

24:20Alan Shearer:It's finding the balance, isn't it, between scoring enough goals and not leaving yourself too exposed, I guess. But I think the scoring of goals is down at that. That's where the individual is. You know, people, even if you find them with the ball in areas where they could do it, some are skillful enough to do it and some, unfortunately, come close. you know they you feel sorry because they've made the right runs they've done the right things their control's not bad just a little bit too late laying the shot or maybe they should have fainted the shot and given themselves a better chance with their other foot all those little things that's down to the you can't you can't really coach that as such that's so I think the club's done extremely well and just before I left I think the club made two important signers in the January transfer window in Moonhuis and Warton because all the time we were there, we were identifying, well, if we could get this type of player, that type of player, with what we've got.