When Thomas Tuchel delivered his opening team talk at Mainz in 2009, he began with a smile.
Before the words, he used a facial expression to make the right impression. Tuchel wanted to set a tone of positivity with his players in his first major job as a head coach. So he smiled.
One of the players in that Mainz meeting, reaching retirement some years later, wrote to Tuchel, ranked at no.10 in FourFourTwo's list of the best managers in the world right now, saying how much that smile meant. Coach and players were all in it together. The German’s task now is to put a smile on England’s face.
How Sir Southgate transformed squad spirit
Spirits don’t need that much lifting. Gareth Southgate did a magnificent job in his 102 games in charge, guiding the Three Lions to a semi-final, a final, a quarter-final and a final.
Southgate has left Tuchel plenty of talent. He has transformed the mood since 2016.
Fans still get flashbacks to Nice and Icelandic long throws, thunder claps and a short-tempered Roy Hodgson departing.
Sam Allardyce quickly left clutching a pint of wine and a grievance against the press after a newspaper sting.
Southgate inherited a mess. He soon rebuilt the culture, getting the players to want to report for duty, and making them share the pride he felt so deeply in representing England.
Before the 2018 World Cup, Southgate had all 23 players sitting at individual tables in the futsal hall at St George’s Park, talking to us journalists, with instructions to open up and tell their backstories.
Raheem Sterling patiently explained why he had a gun tattoo, a tribute to his slain father. Danny Rose spoke powerfully about being diagnosed with depression.
Southgate humanised the players’ images. We got to see and understand the man behind the name. Long-suffering fans loved that, and really got behind the team.
Southgate brought in a psychologist to help with penalties.
Most significantly, as Tuchel will appreciate, Southgate had increasing access to a deepening talent pool that he himself – along with the academies – was responsible for creating as FA’s head of elite development 14 years ago.
He just lacked the in-game management to respond to the changes made by Zlatko Dalic of Croatia at the 2018 World Cup, Italy’s Roberto Mancini at Euro 2020 and Spain’s Luis de la Fuente at Euro 2024 in decisive moments of key matches.
At the 2022 World Cup, Southgate’s side did well against Didier Deschamps’ France in the quarter-final but didn’t take their chances.
Southgate took the English patient in 2016 and began the recovery. It is now down to a superior tactician, Tuchel, to end 60 years of hurt with victory at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on July 19, 2026.
Tuchel’s mission is to make England become giants at the home of the New York Giants.
Trying to understand England’s latest attempted saviour is not straightforward.
Tuchel is fire and ice – a mixture, capable of uplifting one-on-ones with players but also capable of damaging their confidence with withering home truths. He’s uber-bright and a good reader of someone’s character.
During his first media conference at Wembley in October, I asked Tuchel whether he would make Harry Kane, his major signing at Bayern Munich, his captain. He dodged the question – but with a smile.
He fell out with some players at Bayern, Joshua Kimmich included.
Kane and Eric Dier liked him, though. I went to see Dier in Munich and he couldn’t have been more positive about Tuchel’s tactical nous and emotional intelligence.
But players have to be strong to play for Tuchel. He criticises and challenges. He doesn’t hide frustration when leaping up and down in the technical area.
Jude Bellingham will surely love him. Bellingham himself has incredibly high standards and, rightly, demands that others aspire to them.
Tuchel eventually gained a reputation at Borussia Dortmund and Paris Saint-Germain as a coach who fell out with some board members. That won’t be an issue with England.
FA officials won’t get involved beyond technical director John McDermott. They will cross their fingers and hope they have appointed the right man on an 18-month contract solely focused on World Cup glory.
They have appointed a meticulous planner, a master tactician.
Tuchel showed that when managing Chelsea in the 2021 Champions League Final. He controlled the game with decisions like bringing Mateo Kovacic on for Mason Mount with 10 minutes to go, locking down the midfield.
As he proved at Mainz, Tuchel’s team talks can be powerful. It’s important that England players hear the 51-year-old’s back story and the hurdles he overcame, just as they made sacrifices.
Tuchel tells the story of being forced to retire as a player at just 25 following a serious knee injury.
He went around the countless bars and cafes of his native Stuttgart hunting work to fund him through his economics studies. He collected glasses and ended up mixing cocktails.
He’s seen a lot of life outside football’s bubble. Players and fans will respect that.
At club level, Bellingham is coached by Carlo Ancelotti, Trent Alexander-Arnold by Arne Slot, Phil Foden by Pep Guardiola and Anthony Gordon by Eddie Howe, the one English contender with the nous, credibility and ability. The FA either didn’t rate Howe enough to approach him, or simply didn’t fancy a compensation fight with Newcastle’s Saudi ownership.
Few players have enjoyed completely smooth journeys to the top of their profession.
Everyone knows about Ollie Watkins’ spell in non-league, Declan Rice being released by Chelsea at 14, Reece James’ injury battles and the inexplicable criticism that Jordan Pickford occasionally receives.
I was watching England’s No.1 in training during Euro 2024 – he failed to reach one shot and screamed his frustration, adding that the clip will soon “be all over the internet”.
Tuchel’s lived through a lot. He can tell players about being on Dortmund’s bus when it got struck by a nail-bomb en route to a Champions League match in 2017.
He can talk of his pride in his mother’s decades of work assisting the disabled.
He can remember how he responded at Chelsea when Roman Abramovich was sanctioned following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Tuchel was left to defend the football club in public.
He proved a really impressive leader, in difficult circumstances, even telling the Chelsea supporters to “show respect” over such a sensitive situation.
His early-morning meditation sessions will now come in handy in the England pressure cooker.
The tabloids will doubtless be interested in his private life.
He also walks into a media landscape torn over whether England should be managed by a foreigner for a third time.
The Sven-Goran Eriksson era was initially promising – 5-1 and even Heskey scored, as the chant goes – but then faded in a storm of broken metatarsals and missed penalties.
Fabio Capello’s spell also began smoothly, but his often cold man-management approach – calling Joe Hart “Jon” etc – frustrated the players.
Tuchel will face the heat of columnists arguing that international football should be our best against your best.
I felt that after Capello. But, realistically, where is the ‘one of our own’ that’s even remotely good enough?
The FA had to be pragmatic rather than patriotic and romantic. They had to consider the need for a manager of the players’ elite quality.
At club level, Bellingham is coached by Carlo Ancelotti, Trent Alexander-Arnold by Arne Slot, Phil Foden by Pep Guardiola and Anthony Gordon by Eddie Howe, the one English contender with the nous, credibility and ability.
The FA either didn’t rate Howe enough to approach him, or simply didn’t fancy a compensation fight with Newcastle’s Saudi ownership.
They focused on Tuchel, and good luck to him. It’s all smiles for now.
