Thomas Tuchel and the burden of history with England

The FA’s decision to appoint the German, Thomas Tuchel, as the manager of the Three Lions has raised a lot of dust amongst former England internationals, journalists and others in and around the game.

The FIFA World Cup has been won by seven countries since the 1930 first edition. The UEFA European Championships have been won by ten different countries in its seventeen editions.

Tuchel, the former Dortmund, PSG, Chelsea and Bayern Munich manager, is not the first foreigner to be appointed by the FA. In 2001, Sven-Goran Eriksson was appointed to replace Kevin Keegan and went on to manage England to the 2004 European Championship and the 2006 World Cup.

Fabio Capello followed after Steve McLaren had failed to qualify England for Euro 2008. The serial winner at club level in Italy and Spain took England to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Unlike when Eriksson replaced Keegan and Capello replaced McLaren, Tuchel is not replacing a hapless English predecessor which makes the decision to go this route baffling.

In appointing Tuchel, the FA insist (and stridently shared by their supporters) that they “Have appointed the best man for the job.” Now, this is what irritates me to no end about it all. They have chosen or gone about the appointment of the job of the national team manager like a football club, which is fundamentally flawed.

National teams of countries like England, where the passion for the sport runs so deep, should never make decisions about who manages the team without looking at it from the angle of patriotism. The manager of the Three Lions can be viewed as far more important to many of the citizens than even the Prime Minister!

The Premier League is the runaway most watched league in the world. Go into the cities and villages at weekends in England to see how many people play the game in parks and how many go to support their teams at the four levels of professional football. This sport is very important to them.

Gareth Southgate took England to fourth place at the 2018 FIFA World Cup, second place at Euro 2020 and Euro 2024. He took over from Roy Hodgson in 2016. When Southgate was appointed, how many thought at the time that he would have taken England into these positions that they had never been near since Euro 96? I don’t remember the FA saying they had given the job to the best man for the job.

You can query Southgate’s tactics during those two final defeats but you can’t question that his results should have been strong cases for continuing with an Englishman for the job.

It is not an accident of history that no foreign manager has won the FIFA World Cup only one has won the European Championships.

It is extremely important that the International Game is saved from the overbearing and overwhelming nature of European club football.

When you speak to former and current internationals and ask them to explain what it means to wear the national team jersey, you get the sense that the pride that comes with it is something they are actually unable to articulate. Time and time again, you always get them being speechless about the impact on them. That is primarily because it is THEIR country. They know they are representing their immediate and extended families and the history of the fatherland. It matters. It is no longer just a football match. It is the defence of the flag and the territory being represented.

Joachim Low did not win the world cup with Germany in 2014 after a glittering club career. Didier Deschamps who succeeded Low as a world cup winner in 2018 did not do so on the back of glittering club management record. Argentina’s 2022 FIFA World Cup winning coach is Lionel Scaloni. All of these men managed their own countries and none came with glittering club careers. And there is Luis de la Fuente, he who masterminded the ouster of Germany, France and England on the way to leading Spain to being European Champions. 

There is absolutely nothing racist or xenophobic about expecting your fellow countryman to be the manager of your national team. If your country won’t hire a foreigner to be president/PM/Army or Defence chief then it should not hire a foreigner to manage your national sporting teams. It is actually as simple as that.

Eddie Howe at Newcastle, Steve Cooper (U17 World Cup winner) at Leicester, Graham Potter, formerly of Brighton and Chelsea and even Michael Carrick at Middlesbrough are Englishmen who could repeat the feats of Low, Deschamps, Scaloni and de la Fuente.

The wider picture in all this is that you can imagine Federation presidents in the African continent saying, “Well, if England can appoint a foreigner to manage their national team with their strong Premier League, what is our own excuse not to go down same route?”