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England assistant manager Bev Priestman on working dynamics with Phil Neville
Bev Priestman’s appointment to England’s coaching staff attracted nothing like the clamour that greeted that of Phil Neville, but that was because no one could raise any objection.
In August last year Priestman was announced as assistant to head manager Neville via a succinct statement on the Football Association website. It was a world away from the juggernaut of criticism that followed Neville’s appointment, given his lack of first-team managerial experience compared to the 145 other candidates headhunted by a recruitment agency.
It is possible to feel uneasy about the manner of Neville’s appointment but admire all he has accomplished since, but it is to the FA’s credit that no such hand-wringing followed Priestman’s arrival.
She became head of football development at the New Zealand FA in 2011, then a Fifa women’s coaching instructor for several national teams. Two years later, she moved to Canada, and was assistant coach for the senior team who won bronze at Rio 2016.
In the past 10 months, Priestman has not just brought intimate knowledge of the women’s game but technical and tournament experience. In return, Neville has provided “world-class man-management”, Priestman says. “You have to allow him the time to not get bogged down in the details so that he can get the best out of every player. They want to create a moment that lasts forever, like they did in Canada.”
Despite the controversy surrounding his own appointment Neville stressed from the outset that he wanted to develop female coaches. Manchester United manager Casey Stoney was the greatest beneficiary, and Priestman says that male and female coaches often possess different strengths.
“Historically, I’ve believed that women have a good gut instinct, feel, emotional intelligence – they understand women,” she says. “Phil’s quite unique in the sense that he’s got a great intuition. Phil’s sister being in netball [means] he has that. He’ll use the people around him.
“What I’ve learnt from Phil is he’s the most open guy I’ve met. He’s taking it in his stride, but I can see the excitement in his eyes. I’ve heard him say that this is the biggest thing he’s ever done. The girls feel that and they will run through a brick wall for him.”
The other Neville brother is the one whose Twitter biography says “Attack the Day” and whose wife complains of being woken each morning by the glow of the iPad from which Gary reads the sports sections, but Phil has his own obsessive streak. Most mornings in Nice, he rose at 6am to run along the Promenade des Anglais with his assistants. “I’m more of a sprints, high intensity, 25 minutes and I’m done … Phil can get a bit hardcore with his hill sprints,” Priestman says.
The jury is still out on whether managing women footballers is radically different from managing men. Former Leeds United manager Neil Redfearn became the first former English Football League first-team manager to take charge of a women’s team when he was appointed head coach of Doncaster Belles. He said at the time: “The principles of developing players are the same. I don’t just see women – I see players, the people.”
The Chelsea Women manager Emma Hayes, however, believes “it’s a lot harder coaching women”. Conflicts and feuds last longer, and the menstrual cycle “is a major physiological event” with “a lot to manage”.
England midfielder Jade Moore says: “It’s about the individual experiences a coach has been through. If women coaches have a repertoire of experiences they can rely on, they can sometimes deliver that better, female to female, because [they have] that emotional intelligence.
“From female coaches I’ve had, a few of them have a better grasp of man management, of sitting down with you and being able to empathise. But some guys have been really good at that and Phil’s one of them. Sometimes men are much more straight to the point: you’re in or you’re out.
“But I don’t foresee a lot of differences. A lot of men I’ve worked with are much more emotional than women, especially about performances. A lot of women can be much more logical: ‘Well, we lost, we didn’t do this very well – but next week we’ve got a bigger game to prepare for. That’s our focus’.”