Hope Powell: ‘Let Your Team Have an Opinion’

Hope Powell sat down with UCFB to talk about how she built England squads, and the answer is less about tactics than about voices. She handpicked her staff, she says, specifically wanting people who would challenge her thinking, and applied the same principle to players: let them have a voice, let them have an opinion, and embrace it. With so many personalities from so many backgrounds, getting that right can matter more than the football itself. She is equally clear that a head coach has to manage upwards as well as down – convincing the Football Association that agreeing to an idea would benefit them too, because a win for her was a win for them. Powell led England to two World Cup quarter-finals and the 2009 European final.