Thomas Tuchel’s first break into coaching came when, due to a knee injury that had forced him into retirement at the age of 25, he was given charge of Stuttgart’s youth team by Ralf Rangnick, the club’s high priest. gegenpressing. In two of his first senior roles, he reformed and adapted the teachings of Jurgen Klopp, taking Mainz higher than ever before or since and giving Bayern Munich a major challenge when he was in charge of the Bundesliga. During his 17 years as a coach, the likes of Julian Nagelsmann and Marco Rose found themselves under his wing. A coaching boom spanning more than two decades in education has extended its roots to Anfield, the Allianz Arena and now Wembley.
What has England produced in return? The most compelling homegrown free agent on the market was barely prepared for the job in his home country. In fact, it took Graham Potter taking Ostersunds from the fourth tier of the Swedish pyramid to the knockout stages of the Europa League before any club in the Championship would even put a point on him.
To be seriously considered one of the top coaches in his homeland, Eddie Howe had to take Bournemouth from the basement of League Two to the Premier League. Would he still have been in serious discussions if Newcastle had not given him a chance in 2021?
After that, the options are quite minimal. In the top five European leagues there are three English head coaches (four if you consider Belgian-born Will Still). Not since Harry Redknapp in 2008 has a major honor been bestowed on an England manager in their home country. Much has been made of the St. George’s Park path for coaches established in light of Gareth Southgate’s success, but the pipeline of development to the highest levels of the game is no less long for coaches than for players. The EPPP, designed to take the best and brightest talent on the pitch to the top of English football, is paying off, but only after a decade.
The early signs are that coaches are coming through, and many of them are respected in the game before they get the top spots. For now, English clubs appear reluctant to take the plunge. It took five years after being praised for his work at Manchester United before Kieran McKenna got a senior job at Ipswich Town. During spells at Swansea, Chelsea, Manchester United and Wales, Eric Ramsay was regarded as one of the best young coaches in the sport. No wonder he was the youngest British coach to receive a UEFA Pro License. Still, he had to move to MLS for his first big break in management. Tuchel’s assistant Anthony Barry is admired enough to get a job under Roberto Martinez.
The promise is there in individual cases, but these are just the first saplings in what must be a forest of talent if it is to impact the world’s game. It has been a lifetime since an English coach has been at the tactical forefront of football, since Sir Alf Ramsey’s World Cup winners. Over the past two decades, too many opportunities have gone to some of the greatest talents on the field. The parachuting of big names like Gary Neville and Frank Lampard into top jobs has done more harm than good to England coaching standards.
All of this goes some way towards answering the question that Tuchel will undoubtedly face more than once during his tenure: why can’t an English manager do your job? After all, the idea is compelling. International football should be our best against yours, an almost Corinthian endeavor when set against the greed of the club game. Shouldn’t that apply to the man in the dugout?
On the other hand, most would tacitly acknowledge that this is an unwritten rule that only applies to the ‘top countries’, a group that would include former world champions England. There is no widespread outrage over the fact that countries such as Portugal, Colombia, Nigeria and Ivory Coast often rely on coaches from beyond their borders. All of these countries have won as many or more major awards than the Three Lions. Even two-time world champion Uruguay has no problem handing over the lead to an Argentinian.
The best of the best may take a principled stand, but they have developed structures to make that happen. There is no English equivalent for Coverciano, the Italian university of football management, no obligation to develop coach after coach after coach as in the Basque Country. If you plan to limit yourself in terms of population, you might as well have done the work of developing your talent pool long ago.
Set aside for a moment the possibility that someone from outside a country’s borders might feel more kinship with the nation than many born here — just four months into his Chelsea tenure, Tuchel told this publication that London was “the perfect place at the perfect time”. – and the real question is why England should consider itself above help from outside its borders.
Tuchel himself discussed it very elegantly at his introductory press conference. When asked what he could tell the skeptics about his nationality, he said: ‘I’m sorry. I only have a German passport. I can tell them: maybe these supporters felt my passion for the Premier League, the country, how much I love it. I live here and work here. Hopefully I can convince them and show that I am proud to be the England manager.”
He even dodged the question about national anthems and merely celebrated how “touching” it is to beg the almighty to protect a septuagenarian monarch.
Frankly, there are bigger existential questions surrounding English coaching, some of which go well beyond the FA’s sphere of influence. Why won’t Premier League and even Championship clubs take a chance on unproven talent unless Guardiola is overseeing? Why have English managers only started testing themselves again in recent years across the Channel, and is it all a matter of the country’s proficiency with foreign languages?
At this moment these were not the questions on the minds of England.
“Basically we wanted to hire a coaching team to give us the best possible chance of winning a major tournament, and we believe they will do exactly that,” said FA CEO Mark Bullingham of Tuchel and his England assistant Anthony Barry.
The world-class talent is there. As Carsley himself put it, this opportunity “deserves a world-class coach who has won trophies.” By any reasonable definition, Tuchel achieves that standard. No English coach does that, and not this century either.
Ultimately, the goal of international football is not to be the most representative of your country. It’s to win the biggest prizes, especially if you haven’t done that in 60 years. An elite head coach carefully nurtured from the branches of one of the most successful coaching trees of this generation seems a better prospect than anything grown on the altogether less fertile English soil.