England kick off their Euro 2024 campaign against Serbia this evening and assistant manager Steve Holland will once again be in the dugout alongside Gareth Southgate as the pair attempt to guide the Three Lions to glory in Germany.
Southgate and Holland will be putting the finishing touches to his side’s preparations knowing they have a fully fit squad to choose from in Gelsenkirchen, which will come as a great relief to England supporters.
Holland has been Southgate’s assistant throughout his reign as England boss, which started when he took over as caretaker back in September 2016.
That has seen Holland travel to two World Cups and the 54-year-old will embark on his second European Championships this summer, attempting to lift a major trophy for the first time working with the senior team.
The Southgate-Holland partnership pre-dates their time with the England first team, with the duo having worked together at Under-21 level previously.
Southgate brought Holland in as his assistant when he was U21 boss in August 2013 and they made the step up to the senior side together after Sam Allardyce was sacked in 2016.
Holland’s coaching career began a long time before that, though, as he took his first job as a coach way back in 1992, aged just 21.
His playing career was not taking off as hoped, after being released from Derby County as a teenager and short spells at Bury and in Sweden followed by injuries hampering his progress. He started to build his coaching CV from a very young age, working with the Cheshire FA.
He was brought in by Crewe Alexandra in 1992 to work with the youth teams and would go on to manage the club’s highly successful academy, spending 15 years working in the age-range set-up at Gresty Road.
Holland had a brief stint in charge of the Crewe first team from 2007-08, then another short spell as academy director at Stoke City before his big move to Chelsea.
He was appointed reserve team manager in 2009 and stepped up to first team coach in 2011 after an impressive couple of years in his initial role.
That step up came under Andre Villas-Boas and Holland would go on to coach under the likes of Carlo Ancelotti, Jose Mourinho, Antonio Conte, Guus Hiddink, Roberto Di Matteo and Rafael Benitez.
It may have been a turbulent time for Chelsea managers, but Holland was a mainstay and won two Premier League titles, the Champions League, FA Cup, Europa League and League Cup as a coach of the Blues.
Southgate snapped him up for England while he was still working with Chelsea but he left the west London club at the end of the 2016-17 season to focus on the Three Lions.
Speaking in 2021 when Holland was awarded the MBE, Southgate explained how he first got to meet his long-time colleague and how highly he rates him as a coach.
‘I met Steve for the first time when I visited Chelsea to watch some of the training, and I was there in a role in terms of trying to improve youth development at the FA,’ said Southgate.
‘Andre Villas-Boas was the manager and I liked the way the coaching team there worked, I liked Steve’s ideas on the game and his approach to the coaching session.
‘And when I got the opportunity to take the U21s, I knew with his experience of young player development over a long period of time he would be the perfect person to come in and work with the U21s.
‘He’d just won a Champions League final with Chelsea, he’d won the league with Chelsea and he had a terrific background in youth development so tremendous experiences to pass on to the players.
‘We had a meeting at a hotel to talk about that possibility, thanks to Chelsea and Jose [Mourinho] at the time, who allowed him to come and do that.
‘We developed an understanding and relationship that I think has been a huge friendship as well as a working relationship.
‘He’s someone I trust entirely, whose opinions and views on football are aligned with mine, whose values as a person are at a really high level and his attention to detail around doing the job are an example to any coach at any level.
‘I think he would be the most successful coach in English football or English coach, I can’t think of anyone else who has won the things he has won or had his experience at club and international level. He’s a top operator.
‘Without his experiences, his approach, his thoughtfulness and the quality of his work, would we have had the journey we have had in the last five years with the seniors and the U21s?
‘I hope he feels that I’m a manager that allows him the responsibility to do his job, that gives him trust and that is supportive when he needs me to be.
‘I think for any management team that balance of personality and experiences is really important.’
Holland told The Telegraph of his relationship with Southgate: ‘I guess the bedrock of that is that I’ve been with Gareth since 2013. We have great confidence working together given the experiences that we’ve had.
‘He’s also a strong guy who I have seen evolve during the decade that I have been working with him. He’s a more than capable guy who I believe is a really good ambassador for the country.
‘Whatever you think about his coaching ability or management or results, and we can never please everybody, I think he is a good human being who is a very good advert for England and English football in general. So I am very proud to be his assistant, quite frankly.’
Holland has also come with a glowing reference from former Arsenal, Barcelona and Chelsea star Cesc Fabregas, who was thoroughly impressed with his work at Stamford Bridge.
‘Holland’s meticulous coaching brain is England’s secret weapon,’ Fabregas wrote in The Telegraph. ‘Assistant managers can be undervalued when it comes to handing out praise to people for the performances and results of a team, but, in Steve Holland, England have one of the very best.
‘Steve and I worked together for three years and won two Premier League titles together at Chelsea, and I can tell you that he was very important to our success.
‘He will listen to you and talk a lot of sense, but I think the thing that makes players really respect Steve is he is not the kind of assistant who will just listen to the manager and do whatever he says. He has his own personality and his own opinion, and that is really important.’
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