Thomas Tuchel won the Champions League while he was managing Chelsea (Picture: Getty)
The new England manager is a Champions League winner, has coached or competed against many of the players he will work with over the next 18 months and, of no consequence at all, was born in Krumbach, Germany.
Have we really not grown up enough to be able to look past Thomas Tuchel’s passport and focus on the overwhelming positives of his impending appointment?
In an ideal world the figurehead of the England team would be English but the Football Association’s priority must be to hire the best person for the job and in Tuchel they have nailed the brief.
Gareth Southgate may have restored pride in the national team, but defeats in consecutive European Championship finals brutally exposed shortcomings that hailing from Hertfordshire failed to compensate for.
The two most qualified England candidates to succeed Southgate, meanwhile, appear to be cut from similar cloth. Indeed, while Tuchel thrived in the heat of the Chelsea cauldron, Potter simply melted away while although Howe can point to an impressive record at Newcastle, the demands of operating in the St James’ Park goldfish bowl are a world away from the pressures of managing England.
The idea of promoting from within, meanwhile, may have had a convenient, PR-able element to it and although it is a model that has worked for Spain, Lee Carsley wreaked of caretaker so deeply he might as well have reported for duty for last week’s Nations League fixtures with a mop and bucket.
We shouldn’t rewrite history either and pretend Southgate had long been marked out for managerial stardom by the FA. He was parachuted into the job after his predecessor was sacked in disgrace having been caught negotiating with a Fake Sheikh.
Harry Kane and Thomas Tuchel are set to rekindle their working relationship (Picture: Getty)
Lee Carsley ruled himself out of the running last week following England’s win over Finland (Picture: Getty)
Southgate got lucky with the FA and vice versa. After the missed opportunities of the 51-year-old’s reign the governing body appear to have belatedly settled on the realisation that winning is all that really matters. Having sounded out Pep Guardiola they shot for the moon and missed but Tuchel is no consolation prize.
A serial trophy collector, tactical innovator and master communicator, it’s hard to comprehend how fortunate England have been to be in a position to hire someone of Tuchel’s calibre virtually unopposed.
England have been down this road before, of course, and been burned. Fabio Capello was an unmitigated disaster while the Sven Goran Eriksson era has been the subject of some rose tinted revisionism following his sad death.
Neither of those seasoned campaigners, however, were as qualified for the role as Tuchel given the success he has already enjoyed in the Premier League.
Thomas Tuchel: What the pundits say
Rio Ferdinand: ‘I think Thomas Tuchel his credentials as a manager, put everything to one side, he’s won the Champions League, the biggest club competition …read more
Source:: Metro
