With Thomas Tuchel, the devil is in the detail and it can often seem like an obsessive, controlling force. The new England head coach sees the minutiae like few others. “In training, he will check if you control the ball with the correct foot,” says Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who played under him at Borussia Dortmund and, briefly, Chelsea.
Even this does not tell the full story. As other members of Tuchel’s Chelsea squad will tell you, he demanded they knew the favoured foot of every teammate on the pitch and always passed into it; at the right speed, at the right angle, at the right time. Get it wrong and they could expect to hear about it.
Perfectionist. Workaholic. A man who considers football like a game of chess. Intensely challenging. They were some of the descriptions that recurred as the Football Association carried out its due diligence into Tuchel and the higher-ups had them reinforced and then some when they met him for talks.
PowerPoint by point, Tuchel walked them through how he saw it all: the preparation work in camps, the creativity he would bring. When things are going well, Tuchel has the ability to hold an audience in the palm of his hand, whether in a dressing room or boardroom. His command of language in his native German or, more pertinently now, English, is beguiling. It was one of the reasons why the FA was sold.
When the governing body started the process to recruit a permanent successor to Sir Gareth Southgate, it divided the candidates into three pots, calling one of them the “super elite”. No prizes for guessing where it placed Tuchel. His CV alone explains why there was such a buzz on the England squad’s WhatsApp group when the appointment was announced in mid-October, albeit Tuchel would not start work until the new year. Only now have his first games come into view – the World Cup qualifiers at Wembley against Albania on Friday and Latvia on Monday.
Tuchel has won 11 major trophies, including the Champions League with Chelsea in 2021. He has been a fixture in the knockout rounds of Europe’s elite competition since 2017. He has managed some of the game’s biggest names at the biggest clubs. But what has also excited the England players is how he will make them better.
This is what Tuchel does, it has long been his calling card, and often in explosively quick style. “He brings you to a different level of competition, of knowing about football,” says his captain from the Chelsea days, César Azpilicueta, in the Premier League Stories TV show on Tuchel.
Tuchel wants to control every aspect of a game, for his players to know precisely what is expected at each point during it. He prepares them to such an extent that they go on to the field feeling extremely sure of themselves, most of his time spent on what his team can do. The idea? If they play to their best they will shape proceedings, dominate them. Then, nothing else will matter.
There is a story about Tuchel from his year out after he left Mainz in 2014. He went to visit Pep Guardiola, then with Bayern Munich, and the pair spent hours at the dinner table, moving the salt and pepper mills about, lost in the deepest of tactical discussions. Tuchel counts Guardiola as a major influence and it is easy to find the similarities.
“I do see them with Pep,” says Ilkay Gündogan, who plays under Guardiola at Manchester City and worked with Tuchel at Dortmund. “Thomas is very intense and his tactical approach was on a very high level.”
The restlessness. The whirring strategic mind. They are central to who Tuchel is. But he is also able to generate buy-in with his human touch. The stories are numerous from his Chelsea tenure, the little gestures that meant so much, showing that here was a manager who could take an organisation on a journey.
After Tuchel led the club past Guardiola’s City in the Champions League final, he sourced a photograph of every person who was involved in the first-team setup, who was a part of the triumph – not only players but chefs, security personnel, medical staff. He pulled them together in a montage, framed the print, put a commemorative plaque at the bottom and wrote a personal message to each individual before presenting the memento to them.
The cookies are fondly remembered, too. Tuchel insists there is a bakery in Germany that makes better Lebkuchen than anywhere else and one Christmas he resolved to import 200 crates of them so that everyone at Chelsea would have a special present. It was surely a logistical pain for those he co-opted. Was it worth it? Yes.
With Tuchel, there is always time for fun. Maybe during a recovery session, for example. “He likes to mix things up,” says Aubameyang. “Training is really intense, working with the ball most of the time, but on a recovery day, rather than run, you might play basketball, which is different and enjoyable.”
When it is time to work, it is really time to work. “There is a great balance with Thomas,” says Harry Kane, the England captain, who played under Tuchel at Bayern. “He did a lot around togetherness and motivational stuff, whether that’s videos or speeches.
“He has a relaxed environment when you’re not training, with a bit of banter. But when you’re on the pitch it is full focus. Tactically, he’s known for being one of the best, but it’s also the energy he brings. He is really disciplined in what he wants and he won’t shy away from confrontation if need be.”
Aubameyang stands as the perfect case study of what can happen when Tuchel makes the right connections with a player. “Thomas wins people’s trust because he’s a cool guy, very smart,” says the striker, who scored prolifically for Tuchel at Dortmund.
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An episode from 2016 resonates. Aubameyang had nipped off to Milan without the club’s permission – for a haircut – instead of staying with his teammates before a Champions League tie at home to Sporting. Tuchel dropped him, but that was it; action taken, no grudges stored up. In the next game, Aubameyang scored four in a 5-2 win at Hamburg and he ran over to hug Tuchel.
There was no way Aubameyang would have signed for Chelsea in 2022 if Tuchel had not been the manager. The only problem was that Tuchel was sacked six days later. Aubameyang was asked in January for the first words that came into his head when various people were mentioned. Tuchel? “My coach,” he said. When Tuchel gets you, it is for good.
It does not always click. Because Tuchel expects so much of himself, he does likewise with everyone he works with; it is just how it goes with an obsessive. If people do not step up to his level, if they do not embrace his desire to understand football, to accept his criticisms, that is when problems start.
Tuchel is plainly an emotional presence on the touchline, never far from boiling point and it does not take much for him to reach it – a player’s failure to carry out an instruction, a pass to a wrong foot. He is never afraid to speak his mind, to highlight shortcomings, and it was widely reported that he fell out with key players at Bayern. “He is pretty straight in how he talks,” says Kane. “And maybe there were some players who didn’t like that or agree with that.”
Bayern was probably the wrong club for Tuchel – too much ego, too fixed in how they go about things. It was always a possibility he would clash with the grandees such as Uli Hoeness and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge. Then again, Tuchel’s career has been characterised by friction with club directors – at Dortmund, then Paris Saint-Germain before Chelsea and Bayern.
Tuchel always blows up. And it does not tend to take too long. He lasted two years at Dortmund, two and a half at PSG. It was 19 months at Chelsea, 14 at Bayern. There is a reason why the FA has given him an 18-month contract; a one-ticket gig for the World Cup. It is the downside of Tuchel’s ultra-demanding nature. It takes a toll on those around him. Even on himself. The FA hopes the glory can come first.
Tuchel has always had Arno Michels as his assistant, ever since his first managerial role at Mainz, and has almost always had Zsolt Löw as his other main one – since PSG. They have complemented him, balanced him. He has brought neither to England and it will be interesting to see how he fares without them.
There will be a focus on Anthony Barry, Tuchel’s No 2, whom he inherited at Chelsea and took to Bayern. The FA considers Barry to be one of England’s brightest young coaches and is surprised more has not been made of his appointment.
The FA considered having Barry alongside Tuchel at the head coach’s presentation, having delayed the event to allow Barry to complete his assistant manager’s duties with Portugal, who had a game against Scotland. In the end, it decided against having Barry on the stage but regards Tuchel and Barry very much as a double act, as it did Southgate and Steve Holland.
It is Tuchel who brings the main character energy and the blueprint is there from his time at Chelsea: hit the ground running, bristling with intensity; drive an instant improvement, propelling the players beyond their previous limits; enjoy the ultimate glory.
A line from Tuchel’s mentor, Ralf Rangnick, feels pertinent. He first had Tuchel as a player at SSV Ulm before giving him his coaching break in 2000 at Stuttgart’s academy. “I always say top coaches are not easy to deal with and to handle,” Rangnick said. With Tuchel, it is all about the upside.
Source: theguardian.com
