From January 1, 2025, coach Thomas Tuchel will officially lead the England team with the mission of conquering the 2026 World Cup championship. "Hopefully I can convince them and show how proud I am to be the England coach," said the German strategist.
With a powerful football background like England, of course they need an excellent local coach to lead the team. Therefore, it is no surprise that the front page of the Daily Mail described it as a "dark day" just 1 day after Tuchel was appointed.
In addition, they also commented: "We don't need Thomas Tuchel. We need a patriot who puts this country first."
To understand the anger of a part of English football fans, we have to go back about 10 years ago. At that time, the English Football Association (FA) had launched a comprehensive player development plan at the national level. However, that plan has not been implemented evenly at the coaching level.
Graham Potter is the clearest proof, as he is still unemployed for 2 years after being sacked by Chelsea.
Coach Lee Carsley pointed out a reason why English football lacks good coaches: "We need an opportunity. We need more English coaches in the national team, Premier League and Championship. We are on the right track, but in the end the coaches have to have the opportunity to show their performance."
In addition, there is a difficulty in getting a training degree in England compared to other countries. UEFA has 3 levels: B, A and PRO, the later level is the most necessary to train top coaches. The number of UEFA PRO licenses in Spain has exceeded 2,000, while in England, this figure is just over 200.
In this situation, the FA has no choice but to look outside to find a suitable coach who is capable of exploiting their top stars. According to The Athletic, the FA has met with 10 candidates, but only a few have been English coaches.
And among all those names, none can compete with the resume that Tuchel has built. To put it in perspective, Tuchel has played twice as many Champions League games (67) as Potter, Eddie Howe, Frank Lampard and Scott Parker combined (31).
In fact, when the FA decided to expand its reach outside, the results were not as expected. Excluding his interim tenure, Tuchel will be the third foreign manager to lead the "Three Lions", after Sven-Goran Eriksson (2001-2006) and Fabio Capello (2007-2012).
Of course, there is no denying that Tuchel is a strategist suitable for short-term plans. Notably, he won the Champions League with Chelsea in 2021 and the final against PSG just a year before.
Obviously, the FA's main goal is to get results and for Tuchel, it feels like they can get closer. However, they still need a long-term solution. As Marca described: "English football has the best house but leaves the key to the neighbors".
