Gareth Southgate enters elite company with England milestone against Italy

England manager Gareth Southgate | IMAGO

EURO 2024 Gareth Southgate enters elite company with England milestone against Italy

Ayoola Kelechi 23:58 - 23.03.2023

Gareth Southgate reaches England milestone with win over Italy

England’s Gareth Southgate has entered an elite club of Three Lions managers after masterminding his 50th win with the national team. 

Southgate reaches 50 wins for England

Southgate’s side battled to a well-earned 2-1 victory over Italy in Naples in the EURO 2024 qualifiers, and in doing so, they gave the former England defender a milestone win. 

Southgate’s 50th win means that he is the first England manager to reach that milestone since World Cup winner Sir Alf Ramsey did so in 1970, doing so in only 83 matches. 

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Indeed, only two other England managers have ever hit the 50-win mark, Sir Ramsey and Walter Winterbottom, who was England’s first national team manager, and its longest-serving one as well, with 16 years and 139 games at the helm. 

Southgate sits above Eriksson and Robson

Despite being disparaged by fans as overly pragmatic and conservative, Southgate has still managed to do a decent job with the Three Lions, guiding them to a World Cup semifinal, a European Championship final, and another World Cup quarterfinal in his seven years in charge of the team. 

He is one of only three England managers to win 50 games with the national team, and the only one to do it this century. 

The only other England managers to come close to 50 wins are Bobby Robson, who won 47 of his 95 matches, and Sven-Goran Eriksson, who won 40 of the 67 matches he oversaw as coach of the Three Lions.

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