Gareth Southgate is arguably the best manager England have had since Alf Ramsey, who won the World Cup in 1966.

Southgate’s experience as an England player gives him insight into what the players are going through. A great manager earns the respect of his team, he doesn’t demand it. Some of that respect has come from his record. Under his leadership as manager of the national team, England have lost just three games, winning 13 and drawing four.

One downfall of a lot of managers is their lack of preparation. At no point has Gareth Southgate fallen into this trap. He could have played a ‘weaker’ side against teams like Tunisia and Panama but he knew how much those games meant to the other team and how hard they would fight to win, so he put strong teams out and it paid off. Every player has a fair chance under this manager. They’re given an opportunity to showcase what they can do. Whether it’s the starting XI or subs, he rarely plays the exact same team, which is a strategy to keep opponents on their toes, making it harder for them to do their homework.

Past failures pointing the way forward

His heartache suffered as an England player may have something to do with it. It’s one of his strengths, and he uses it as a lesson for the current team.

He missed a crucial penalty against Germany in the semi-finals of Euro 96. He knows what went wrong then. He knows what he would do if he could turn back time and do it all over again. Case in point, he’s made the squad practice penalty shootouts, including the walk from the halfway line. The idea being that it will improve each player and hopefully make the situation less nervous than when he took that walk on that night 22 years ago.

England also have a reputation of relying on players to volunteer for shootouts. However, having volunteered himself that night against Germany, the plan was to decide which players would take penalties beforehand. It all paid off. England won their first ever penalty shootout at a World Cup in the Round of 16 stage of this year’s tournament.

Less than a week after their penalty shootout win, England defeated Sweden 2-0, securing themselves a place in the World Cup semi-finals for the first time since Italia ’90. It has been twenty eight years since fans have been waiting to see their nation succeed. Southgate has truly helped to rewrite the history books.

A man anyone can relate to

Southgate is a down to earth person who knows how it feels to have the weight of a nation on his shoulders.

He knows how much is expected of his players and how to get the full potential out of them. We can all identify with his compassion. He was pictured after England’s win over Colombia consolidating one of the opponents who had missed his penalty. The picture went viral and has often been put up on social media side by side with the picture of Terry Venables consolidating Southgate after his missed penalty at Euro 96.

Many fans from across the globe are now describing him as a man full of integrity, honesty and empathy, which is a joy to see. There was even a hashtag trend surrounding him including #GarethSouthgateWould. My favorite use of it was “#GarethSouthgateWould pop in to make sure your nan is okay while you’re on holiday.”

It’s not just his on-the-pitch manner that makes him so engaging. He’s a genuinely good-natured person who understands and connects with the players on a personal level. He is there for his players as a friend as well as being their boss. For example, there are a number of players whose partners are expecting. He let Fabian Delph miss the game against Colombia so he could be at the birth of his third child. When addressing the media about such circumstances, Southgate told them that there are more important things in life than the World Cup.

Gareth Southgate doesn’t just have the respect of his team but he has earned the respect of his nation. He has put hope back into the lives of a population who’d almost given up on their chances of being a success at major tournaments. Even if England don’t make it past the semi-finals, they will be celebrated and applauded upon their homecoming. Now, that is an attribute of an outstanding manager. He’s not just the England manager. He’s the people’s manager.

The English Premier League is one of the most famous soccer leagues in the world, whereas the Major League Soccer League is just coming to prominence. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a tournament between the two leagues every summer? Well good news the MLS commissioner Don Garber is considering hosting an annual competition between North American and English teams that would take place in the summer. The competition would be called the Anglo-American Cup. Garber wants more than just the usual teams coming over for pre-season friendlies.

Garber recently told The Guardian newspaper, “I would love to find a way we could play our cup champion and our league champion against an FA Cup and league champion in a tournament and play it in New York City every year.” He went on to say that if it couldn’t be every year, then every four years would suffice. If it was to be every four years, then meticulous planning would have to go in to it to make sure it didn’t clash with other fourth yearly sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup, the European Championship and even the Olympics/Winter Olympics.

Garber’s main objective with this competition is to ride the coattails of the Premier League to help gain more exposure for MLS. After all, Premier League games are broadcast in more than 200 countries to millions of fans every week, while a club such as Manchester United has a brand value estimated to be worth about $3.1 billion. So by featuring competitive games between MLS and the Premier League, it helps expand the awareness about MLS around the world when TV broadcasters show the games during the typically slow soccer month of July.

There are, however, some concerns about bringing this competition to life. Premier League teams already have a crammed season as it is. If Garber decided on the competition taking place every four years, that could alleviate potential burn-out worries. Conversely, with such a big gap of four years, it would impact Garber’s objective of generating exposure for Major League Soccer.

Worries aside, it looks like it could be a successful competition. Garber believes it will definitely help when David Beckham’s Miami franchise is up and running. If it does go ahead and the results are successful, Garber is thinking of extending it past the Premier League, opening it up to some of Europe’s top leagues such as La Liga in Spain, Serie A in Italy, Ligue 1 in France and the Bundesliga in Germany. If this success did happen, it would certainly raise the profile of Major League Soccer even more with the likes of Leo Messi, Neymar, Luis Suarez, Cristiano Ronaldo, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Paul Pogba and Robert Lewandowski possibly playing against some of the America’s top clubs. It would increase the brand value of every club involved in the competition and meet the overall objective of the competition by raising the profile of Major League Soccer and its teams.

John Terry, 35, says he may be finished with Chelsea at the end of the season after revealing the club is not planning on extending his contract. The big question surrounding the player is where next? He has been linked with clubs in China and the Middle East. But the obvious move for the defender is MLS. His odds of moving to a MLS club is 4/6, according to SkyBet.

Terry has recently revealed he will not play for another Premier League or even an European team so he won’t have to play against Chelsea. He also told The Daily Mail newspaper back in December that he wasn’t ready to retire and that he was keen on a move to the United States. Both announcements have prompted soccer fans everywhere to believe that he will follow in the footsteps of former Chelsea and England team-mates Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole as well as former England team-mate and former Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard by making the move across the Atlantic and to MLS. Match of the Day pundit and former Liverpool player Mark Lawrenson spoke on Match of the Day about how he believes that Terry “will jump across the Atlantic” and become the latest English player to join MLS. Graeme Le Saux, former Chelsea and Southampton defender, added to this by saying it was a disappointment that he was leaving but he believes that Terry will have other opportunities if he leaves, especially in the United States.

He won’t be short of offers from American clubs, with LA Galaxy and New York City FC almost guaranteed to be on the interested list. He could also be approached Miami’s MLS club, the team that former England team-mate David Beckham could debut in 2018. In a recent poll conducted by The Telegraph on where their readers think Terry will end up playing next season, 3% said Qatar, 7% thought Real Madrid, 13% thought at a Chinese club but a staggering 72% of people think we’ll be seeing Terry in playing in MLS next season. A similar poll conducted by The Mirror’s website says that 5% think he’ll move to either a Qatari club or to Italian side Inter Milan, 8% voted for him to move to China where he could make up to £20m within a year, 11% voted for him moving to Manchester City even having said he wouldn’t join another Premier League team but again a move to MLS was the fans number one pick with 70% of the vote.

Toronto FC coach Greg Vanney disagrees that MLS is a retirement league. He told The Guardian that “From an outside perception, the league is making progress, the league is a magnet for younger and younger players to come here, and continue to build a career, and continue to keep doors open for their national teams, and continue to grow as players.”

Terry could bring a lot of experience to any MLS side. He is the top scoring defender in Premier League history with 40 goals. He also holds the record for players with 25+ goals with the highest percentage of headed goals with 67.5%. Only Ryan Giggs, Jamie Carragher, Steven Gerrard and Paul Scholes have played more league games for a single club than Terry has with 477 appearances for Chelsea under his belt. In his 21 years at the club, he has made 696 appearances in all competitions scoring 66 goals in total. He won the Premier League with Chelsea in 2005, 2006, 2010 and 2015. He has three League Cups to his name, winning in 2005, 2007 and 2015. He’s also won 5 FA Cups with the London based club in 2000, 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2012. One of his greatest achievements whilst at the club is beating the best teams in Europe to be named Champions League winners in 2012. Last season, he made 49 appearances for the club in all competitions and scored 8 goals. He has been Chelsea’s captain for 12 years and was England captain for five years before retiring. He was also named PFA’s Player of the Year in the 2004/5 season becoming the first Blues player to do so.

SEE MORE: John Terry keen to prolong Chelsea stay.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Terry said “I feel as though I’m in great nick, I’m playing well and I’ve got a couple of years to go. It’ll just have to be elsewhere.” Some may wonder if the ever fastening playing style of MLS is too much for someone who is closing in on retirement to handle but at the end of the day MLS has taken a lot of its playing style from the Premier League. The way the playing style differs most between the two leagues is that the Premier League’s style is more tactical. Chelsea interim manager Guus Hiddink explained to The Guardian, “John is doing perfectly in his performances. He can carry on, of course. He’s very fit. His ambition is enough to carry on,” he added “I like very much the way he’s playing and that he’s committed to the team. He’s not what you normally see in a 35-year-old, that you feel you are getting a bit slower.” This statement makes moving to the fast paced style of MLS a promising prospect for Terry.

The defense of most MLS teams is relatively weaker than those in English teams. The richer teams tend to spend more money on finding and signing a big name striker. As a renowned defender in one of the best leagues in the world, this supposed lack of good defenses could play into Terry’s favor. It will certainly be a challenge for him but he will be viewed as a great asset to any team in MLS. However it would most likely mean taking a pay-cut. Former Chelsea and England team-mate Ashley Cole earns only £4,000 a week at LA Galaxy. Terry is currently earning £150,000 a week at Stamford Bridge.

Terry’s favorite option would be to stay on at the Chelsea. However, despite interim manager Guus Hiddink suggesting that he could stay, he says there has been “no communication” between him and the club. Chelsea will live on in his heart though with Terry saying, “I’ll never forget my memories here and they will live with me forever.”