THOMAS TUCHEL TAKES CHARGE OF ENGLAND WITH THE SIMPLE BRIEF OF WINNING THE 2026 WORLD CUP
Sean O'Conor
"If we speak about our target to add a second star, we have to prove ourselves all the time." - Thomas Tuchel
"I have never felt at any point like I was drowning or struggling." - Lee Carsley.
Gareth Southgate left England a success, whatever the naysayers think. Reaching two European Championship finals was further than any Three Lions manager had gone before, but there lingers a sense of missed opportunities, of racing well before tripping repeatedly at the last or penultimate hurdle, or of leaving the handbrake on when there was a clear home straight ahead.
New Era Dawns
And so we go back to the beginning in England's quest for the golden fleece. As a new era dawns, the Football Association have pinned their hopes on a 51 year-old Bavarian named Thomas Tuchel, in a return to the elite manager model after eight years of head coaches who had come up via the youth ranks.
I use the plural because when Southgate left, the F.A. employed his U21 successor Lee Carsley for half a dozen matches. Five wins out of six and promotion in the UEFA Nations League may pencil in the former Everton defender for a crack at the job in the future, but for now Carsley is a footnote, albeit an intriguing what if, in England's football history.
World Cup Qualifiers
Tuchel will soon take his first sip of the poisoned chalice when England face Albania and Latvia in their inaugural World Cup qualifiers at Wembley in March. Six points from those clashes look a foregone conclusion, but sterner tests await, not least if England manage to make it to the 2026 finals, which would at least banish the bitter memory of failing to make it to the United States in 1994. The blazers want Tuchel to maintain good relationships between the association, clubs, players, press and supporters but the basic mission is clear - win the World Cup next year.
The last time the F.A. gave its new manager such a big and clear order was in 1994 when Chief Executive Graham Kelly told Terry Venables, "Win us the European Championship."
El Tel tried his best but lost on penalties to Germany in the semi-final. Unlike Venables, Tuchel will first have to qualify for the World Cup finals and will not be on home soil.
A German in Charge of a Patriotic Totem
The Tuchel era will be eventful, as England managerial reigns always are, with the added novelty of a German in charge of a patriotic totem, which should discombobulate the last little Englanders, who might self-combust with any luck. Our top flight has definitively globalised in the 21st century in terms of players, while foreign managers like Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and Jose Mourinho have not only become beloved legends with their clubs here but would also have been ubiquitously welcomed had they taken the England job in their primes. Foreigners in English football are here to stay as much as foreign brands are on the high street.
Any grumblers over Tuchel coaching the national team must have very short memories too - he is the third overseas man in charge of the Three Lions after Sven-Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello and no-one could deny their qualifications when they were hired. This is not a purely domestic game anymore, as England painfully discovered when the Mighty Magyars visited Wembley in 1953, a generation ago now.
English Options
The only realistic English options would have been Eddie Howe or Graham Potter and while Potter seemed to have gone off the boil last year when it was time to fill the position, he was still an interesting coach and being well schooled in man-management like Southgate, he could have forged a similar culture. Howe was riding higher with Newcastle but the F.A. seemed reluctant to call him for some reason - perhaps they thought he still needed to prove himself with silverware or they did not fancy a multi-million pound compensation payout for a man under contract.
There is plenty of kindling in Tuchel's track record of falling out with his employers or senior players for the press to salivate over future feuds with England. He is not a Southgate or a Roy Hodgson when it comes to emollient collaboration. Replacing Jurgen Klopp at the Westfalenstadion, Tuchel took Borussia Dortmund to the German cup, and finished second in the Bundesliga but walked out after two seasons having sparked a row with the club hierarchy. Their CEO remembered him as "a difficult person."
PSG
At PSG a similar fracture occurred, with Tuchel publically slating the club's transfer activity and interference from sporting director Leonardo in his job. "Am I still a manager or am I a politician in sport?" he asked Germany's Sport 1. "Where is my role as manager in such a club now? In a club like this it is not always just football," he complained, adding he did not feel he had got enough credit for winning the league or taking the team to the Champions League final. A day later the French club said au revoir.
Noting his job was not what he had thought sounds a lot like Southgate's desire to expand the England manager job description to be about "more than football" and although Tuchel was referring specifically to the Barcelona-like politics of a big club in PSG, he will soon find that the profile of England manager can feel like that of the Prime Minister, on whom a nation pins its unrealistic hopes.
As with a PM, there will be a public honeymoon and grace period followed by doubts and growing resignation, before inevitably the despondent nation turns on him when they realise their dreams will not come true. Even winning the World Cup may not be enough for Tuchel to suffer more slings and arrows. I am reminded of Aime Jacquet's belligerent press conference after winning the 1998 World Cup for France, when he shouted angrily that he would "Never, never forgive my critics!"
Given he tends to land no more than a couple of years in a country before taking flight again, it would be an eye-opener if Tuchel is still in charge of England at Euro 2028, although if he survives the assault course of 2026 and stays popular with his team and association, home advantage may tempt him to hang around and take a great shot at bagging the Henri Delaunay trophy.
Man-Manager
When it comes to the players, Tuchel seems to be a good man-manager, while clearly telling players what he wants them to do. Footballers seem to appreciate simple messaging. That is not to say Tuchel has a basic grasp of the game. An obsessive attention to detail has been noted around him for years. He is a forensically focused planner and obsessive battlefield tactician without the rockstar charisma of Klopp, but his methods have reaped a trophy haul everywhere he has worked.
"He is pretty straight in how he talks," said Harry Kane of working with Tuchel at Bayern. "I think he likes the mentality of English players…talking to the boys who worked with him at Chelsea, they seemed to get on well with him." But Kane also referenced Tuchel's tough side which upset some players in Munich: "Probably come March there will be players who might disagree with some things. Time will tell."
World Soccer's veteran Germany correspondent Nick Bidwell noted Tuchel's "inability to control his emotions, often too combustible, too highly-strung, too abrasive. Personality clashes and fall-outs tend to come with the Tuchel territory…one part brilliance and uncommon footballing insight, one part vitriol and vendetta." England with him in charge should be fun then.
Acrimonious Exits
After acrimonious exits from Dortmund and Paris, one might have thought that a new start mid-season with Chelsea during the pandemic might have soothed his soul. And it did for a while. A few months after landing in London he had won the Champions League with the Blues, a cake then iced by the UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup, confirming his reputation as a winner.
Early into his third season at Stamford Bridge however, his true colours resurfaced and he was sacked following a string of defeats, training ground rows, an F.A. fine and one-match ban and another almighty squabble over recruitment, with the new Chelsea owner Todd Boehly reportedly labelling Tuchel "a nightmare" to deal with.
Bayern
Thence to Bayern where he won the Bundesliga in his first season but the club declined to renew his two-year contract in 2024 after his incessant demand for new signings had ruffled the feathers of the club's hierarchy and he had fallen out with some of the senior players, a reminder of the 'FC Hollywood' culture of Germany's biggest club but equally that with Tuchel, old habits die hard. The F.A. board must have been well aware he had this flaw in his character, but wagered they could live with the inevitable fire and fury if he brought new silverware to their trophy cabinets, much like Mourinho's former employers.
Perfectionist
So Tuchel seems to be a perfectionist who forgets the need for teamwork when things are not going well. Fire in one's belly is an advantage up to a point, but if Tuchel were not winning cups, his passion would appear as futile as the unemployed Roy Keane's. At least the main reasons for his acrimonious exits should not rear their heads with England. Interference from above ended Capello's reign over the John Terry affair, but the F.A.'s Technical Director is the fairly invisible John McDermott, who is highly unlikely to try to tell Tuchel how to play football.
Plus, recruitment, which has been such an irritant for Tuchel at club level, is limited not by budgets but by passports with England. The only room for manoeuvre with playing personnel is at youth level, where there are plenty of dual nationals who need to be spotted and brought into the England fold.
While most boys who are born or grow up in England will still dream of pulling on a white shirt, not all will be picked. Some talents will select other countries for strong family reasons such as the Leeds-born Erling Haaland or the Salford-raised Ryan Giggs, and some realistically would not have played for England like Poland's Matt Cash or Turkey's Colin Kazim-Richards, but equally there are those like the Ivory Coast's Wilfried Zaha or Germany's Jamal Musiala who came through England's youth ranks only to jump ship.
Overall Picture
The overall picture is still rosy. England may have lost the Euro 2024 final but the incoming manager still has a truly great crop of players to work with - Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden, Harry Kane, Cole Palmer and Bukayo Saka for instance, so the prospect of silverware at the next World Cup and Euros remains reasonable. But this is the weight of the shirt that Fabio Capello spoke about - the perennially heavy expectation of winning every match, an unrealistic expectation born from English exceptionalism, which itself was begotten from geographical isolation, Victorian pioneering and the global dominance of the English language. If and when defeat comes in a big match, Tuchel will discover that the job can be a lonely prison, with any genuine liberation months or years away. It is as Graham Taylor admitted, "ultimately an impossible job."
At least the F.A. can point to their appointee's proven success with clubs in three of the big five leagues, a CV which only his foreign predecessors Capello and Eriksson could match. The last decade has brought Tuchel a cabinet clattering with trophies: At Borussia Dortmund he won the German Cup, before moving to Paris where he bagged PSG two titles, a Cup, League Cup and reached the Champions League final. Next, with Chelsea he won the Champions League, Super Cup and Club World Cup before winning Bayern Munich an 11th consecutive Bundesliga title in Germany.
England's association has never had a consistent policy on hiring its national team's managers anyway. Until 1962 a committee selected the squad for the manager Walter Winterbottom, an ex-Manchester United player who had run coaching courses after retirement. From Alf Ramsey onwards it became the top job in English football, the pinnacle of a club coach's career path. That all changed in 2001 when Eriksson was appointed with no experience in the English club game but an impressive back catalogue of European football management.
After a turgid period under his assistant Steve McClaren, who had not been a top-level club manager and failed to take England to Euro 2008, the F.A. went foreign again, picking Capello, who could point to cups won at Juventus, Milan, Real Madrid and Roma as proof he had what it took. His successor Roy Hodgson was effectively another foreign appointment as he had a global rather than an English CV, but all three of those 'continental' coaches fell flat for England, leaving the F.A. scratching their heads.
Back to Basics
Changing tack, England went back to basics with 'Big Sam' Allardyce but a Fleet Street sting derailed him after only one match. Dismayed, the association turned to the U21 coach Southgate as a stop-gap but found their familiar employee was rather good so kept him on. By the time he left in 2024, England had reached a World Cup semi-final and two Euro finals, making Southgate arguably their best-ever coach despite the lack of a trophy. More than any previous manager he had also created a culture of national harmony around the role, providing a steadfast and honourable contrast to that of Prime Minister, which was a comical merry-go-round during his tenure.
Using the same man who had established relationships with the players he had brought through the youth ranks suddenly made sense once Spain won Euro 2024 with a helmsman whose only top-flight coaching experience had been three unhappy months at Alavés in 2011. What Luis de la Fuente did have was a decade of working with Spain's players since starting as U19 coach in 2013 and moving up via the U21 and U23 teams to the senior side.
Lee Carsley
So why did not England take the same path? Lee Carsley seemed cut from the same cloth as Southgate and De La Fuente but despite an impressive covering period, he was not considered for the job while an elite coach in Tuchel was available. A winning streak was always going to raise questions about whether it was worth swapping riders once more but the F.A. were not brave enough to give Carsley more time.
They had wanted their man for a while although the reason Tuchel did not take over soon after Euro 2024 remains unclear. The F.A. claim they started their manager hunt in July 2024 after the Euros but Tuchel claims they did not contact him until late August, which sounds rather tardy. While it appears he was offered the Manchester United job at some stage, that club instead gave Erik Ten Hag a year's extension in July following his impressive dismantling of Manchester City in the F.A. Cup Final in May.
Just after the Ten Hag news the blazers could have swooped for Tuchel but tarried, leaving U21 boss Carsley to coach the Three Lions for six matches. Tuchel says he wanted a break until the New Year, but seems to have delayed until October to sign with England in case a better job turned up, confident the F.A. would wait for their No.1 target.
"It was important for me to narrow it down into a project and not lose the focus," Tuchel claimed. "I wanted a clean start and a bit of time to recharge fully and start in January and start the first camp in March."
2026 World Cup
The rationale that it would be all about the 2026 World Cup still sounds odd as Tuchel could have learnt a lot from the six games between the 7th of September and the 17th of November and most unemployed managers are itching to get back into work. Compared to the weekly whirl of top-level club football, the lesser challenge of the second level of the Nations League surely would not have been too stressful for a man with his experience.
Anyway, now the F.A. have their first choice in place, although they are not showing blind faith because they have only handed Tuchel a contract until the end of 2026. This is a departure from previous hirings, which have cost them dearly when things didn't work out. Given Tuchel's track record of tantrums, it seems doubly understandable.
So what chance has Tuchel of success the summer after next? Will we be hailing the new Alf Ramsey or another nearly man? It is hard to see him becoming another Graham Taylor in not qualifying for the World Cup but the chances of success in the States are not great either.
Talent
Despite England's talented cadre of players and Tuchel's certain talent, it is worth recalling that only one UEFA nation, Germany in 2014, has won the World Cup in the Americas. USA '94 was played in remorseless heat at absurd lunchtime kick-offs for the sake of European television, which saw Northern European teams like Ireland and Norway wilt. They would statistically have more chances of winning a World Cup in Europe.
Yes Sweden reached the semi final in '94 so there is hope but Latin teams will wield an ambient advantage and the Kloppesque high-speed pressing game which has become fashionable in England is just hard to play in those climatic conditions. Tuchel is no fool however and must know he will have to adapt his domestic methods to an unfamiliar environment. England should recall they reached the last eight of Mexico '86 in oppressive conditions after a difficult start brought one point in two matches, before Gary Lineker found his shooting boots and the team recorded back to back 3-0 wins before falling to Diego Maradona and the hand of God at the Azteca.
Tactics
Tuchel is more tactically open-minded than Ruben Amorim, although he has shared a liking at times for a three-man defence, which is not ingrained in English defenders' heads. But his club jobs have shown a flexibility in formation as well as pretty tight defences, which should bode well for a gentle evolution from the safety-first Southgate system, which reached its limit at Euro 2024.
Tuchel cannot complain about his pack of aces in attack, but equally he will have to play them to effect or be branded another failure at the table. His nous and know-how will be sorely tested by whether he can get the best selection and shape from the many options at his disposal like they are for any England manager, but watchers will be expecting an improvement on second place finishes.
The most-noted absence in Southgate's last squad was a left-footed threat, which could mean more use of Anthony Gordon and/or a recall for Ben Chilwell at left-back. His first conversation has been with Arsenal defender Ben White, who picked up the last of his four England caps back in 2022. Spotting a player off the radar shows a refreshing mind is at work, much like when Eriksson began by picking Charlton's 31 year-old Chris Powell, to many a raised eyebrow.
If Kane remains the fulcrum, and Tuchel will surely rely on his former Bayern marksman as a trusted ally, then he will need to use pace to run beyond Kane and draw the ball back, an option Southgate omitted, leaving Kane blunted. It seems essential to get the best out of Palmer now, as well as relighting the talent of Jack Grealish, who has struggled since signing for Manchester City for £100 million in 2021, but seemed rejuvenated in the recent Nations League matches.
As Tuchel gets stuck into his new job, we will quickly forget there was an England manager between him and Southgate, a caretaker who was in charge for six matches, but we should not. As an interim, Carsey's reign was one less match than Joe Mercer's 1974 interregnum between the reigns of Alf Ramsey and Don Revie, but more than Howard Wilkinson's two games in charge and the sole outings overseen by Sam Allardyce, Stuart Pearce and Peter Taylor.
Five wins out of six places Carsley, according to his win rate, as the second-most successful England manager of all time behind Allardyce's one-game tenure. Had he not experimented with a top-heavy formation at home to Greece, he could have left Wembley with a 100% feather in his cap. As U-21 boss, Carsley was the obvious choice to keep the seat warm once it was clear the Football Association had failed to persuade any big names to sign on the line by the summer of 2024 and the expiration of Southgate's contract.
The English public did not know what to expect but were overjoyed by his first match in charge, a refreshing 2-0 win over Eire in Dublin last September where England played with an attacking verve we had not seen under Southgate. Grealish in particular seemed free from any shackles and skipped like a Spring lamb through the Irish midfield.
He scored at Lansdowne Road along with Declan Rice, both of whom had coincidentally played for the Republic of Ireland at senior and U21 level respectively before declaring for England. The English-born Carsley too had played for Ireland 40 times, including briefly at the 2002 World Cup, and thus opted not to sing the British national anthem in Dublin, adding to the oddness of the occasion.
Ireland was part of the UK until 1921 and the two populations still move freely in a common travel area speaking the same language, so it could never be classed as a true 'overseas' adversary. However much the crowd at the Aviva stadium may have jeered at the visitors, all the green-shirted fans were keen supporters of English clubs as well and needed no reminding that Eire's golden years of 1988-1994 came courtesy of an English World Cup winner Jack Charlton and a core of English-born players.
The win over Ireland was just what the country had been crying out for after Southgate's frustratingly cautious method, so much so that the former Everton man seemed to have suddenly thrown his hat into the ring for the top job afterwards. A comfortable 2-0 home win over Finland three days later seemed to confirm this feeling - Carsley should be considered.
But then came the Greece debacle, where playing with the handbrake off suddenly looked reckless, as a nation ranked far below England who had not qualified for the last five tournaments tore through the Three Lions midfield at Wembley and should have won by much more than 2-1.
Bizarre Lineup
That must rank as the bizarrest England lineup since Graham Taylor picked an experimental 3-5-2 shape for a World Cup qualifier at the Ullevaal Stadium in Oslo in 1993, which Norway duly won 2-0. Was Carsley really picking the fans' dream team hoping it would shut the critics up either way? It remains a mystery and may even have been a thank you to Southgate by reminding his critics you cannot pick a side with all stars and no grafters.
"We tried something different and we tried to overload the midfield," Carsley explained. "We experimented and disappointed it didn't come off," he went on, before saying the unsayable truth about England: "It's unrealistic to expect too much." If it was an experiment, at least it was in a match we could afford to lose.
At the same press conference, Carsley also mentioned "hopefully" returning to the U21 job after his filling-in shift had ended, a comment which truly bemused the press and public because Tuchel's appointment had not yet been announced and there was expectation Carsley might still be in the frame.
His third game was a comfortable win over Finland that seemed to put Carsley's name back into the hat, with the example set by Spain's Luis de la Fuente in his favour. If getting to know players as they move through the ranks is the winning formula, or at least the flavour of the month, then it seemed reckless to rule Carsley out of the running.
But it now appears the contracts were already signed on the 8th of October, two days before the Greek tragedy at Wembley. Because Tuchel's appointment was not revealed publicly for another eight days, Carsley had the unenviable task of not mentioning the elephant in the room in press conferences around two England matches in a week (what terrible timing), instead offering confusing and somewhat surreal responses to the inevitable probes about him and the big chair.
One may wonder why anybody would covet 'the impossible job' anyway given its unrealistic expectations, the certainty of a torrent of abuse and the lack of regular contact with the players, a frustration cited by many national team managers, who yearn to return to club football's daily rhythms. On the other hand there is no greater trophy than the World Cup and that must have been on Tuchel's mind in turning down tempting club offers, as much as it was on the mind of the 2026 host nations' managers - Canada's Jesse Marsch, Mexico's Javier Aguirre and the USA's Mauricio Pochettino.
Tuchel has a great squad at his disposal, one good enough to reach consecutive European Championship finals, but one still lacking that mental strength and killer instinct to win when it matters most. That has to change. It will be his laser focus on the biggest prize that will drive Tuchel as England manager and his fiery desire for success will get its chance, but he will have to be patient as it is a new type of football job he has taken on.
As much as club management can be a training ground for international management, he at least has the credentials in the form of a track record of winning with big clubs and top players. Adapting to the new routine of months between games and the lack of a daily commute to the training ground though will probably be his biggest challenge. Then there is the press pack of wolves snapping at his heels and his need to acknowledge his role is akin to that of a national leader, whether he likes it or not.
His remit remains simple but awesome: Win the World Cup in 2026.
Gareth Southgate Interview 2002
© Sean O'Conor & Soccerphile.com
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