Thomas Tuchel is the best man for the England job – this is a coup

By choosing excellence over ancestry, the Football Association have a coach with the pedigree to handle the complexities of the job

England’s capture of Thomas Tuchel is a genuinely exhilarating moment. It represents a rejection of the stubborn, self-defeating dogma that the manager’s bloodline must at all costs be Anglo-Saxon, and an acceptance that a luminous generation of players can only reach their fullest bloom under a figure who understands how to inspire on the grandest stage. It is a victory, quite simply, for excellence over ancestry.
Yes, cavils will persist over England being led by a German, but on this issue, I incline towards the Rhett Butler philosophy of frankly not giving a damn. What matters most is not that he was born in Bavaria, but that he outsmarted Pep Guardiola on three occasions at Chelsea, including in a Champions League final. And that he was two minutes away, with a less-than-vintage Bayern Munich side, from reaching club football’s greatest game for the third time in five years.
Either a premium is placed on such world-class pedigree or it is not. Thankfully, after all those obliging corporate platitudes about “pathways”, the Football Association have committed to a true moonshot moment, a giant heave to find the person to turn England’s nearly-men into champions, irrespective of the country of origin. It is the correct call. Where Lee Carsley’s self-belief is precarious, Tuchel has reached such a level of comfort in his own skin that he is prepared to engage in a battle of passive-aggressive handshakes with Antonio Conte. That alone should have jaded fans’ pulses racing once more.
While decency demands that Gareth Southgate is given his due for reaching back-to-back European Championship finals, a criticism towards the end of his eight years was that everything had become too consensual, too corporate. Harry Kane could turn in an utterly anonymous performance and still be lauded by the manager as if he were Pele. Do not expect Tuchel to tolerate mediocrity so readily. It helps that he has a healthy relationship with Kane from their season together at Bayern, but equally he is unafraid of targeting sacred cows. When Kylian Mbappe reacted petulantly to being substituted for Paris St-Germain, Tuchel made his displeasure plain, declaring: “He has to respect my decision.”
It is a promising signal as to how he might handle England’s biggest beasts. For all that Jude Bellingham deserves much of his endless acclaim, he is yet to deliver anything like the consistency for England that he produces at Real Madrid. If England are to go deep at a sprawling, cross-continental World Cup in 2026, this anomaly has to be corrected. Tuchel’s CV leaves little doubt as to his gift for extracting the best from his sides. In the five cup campaigns that he oversaw at Chelsea, the club reached the final in four of them.
Plus his sheer enthusiasm for the English game is infectious. Tuchel made an intriguing remark at Bayern that he felt more appreciated in England than in Germany, and during his 18 months at Stamford Bridge he did more than enough to warrant such admiration. He navigated the tumultuous period of Roman Abramovich’s sanctioning deftly and he banished Chelsea’s inferiority complex against Guardiola’s Manchester City through his formidable tactical acumen. 
Urbane, witty, cosmopolitan, he is well-equipped to handle the fiendish diplomatic complexities of the England job. Where Fabio Capello could be aloof and charmless, Tuchel has learnt – as befitting someone who once modelled in New York – how to command an audience.
The idea that Tuchel’s appointment signifies some grotesque betrayal of English heritage should not be given the time of day. The last English manager to win the European Cup was Joe Fagan in 1984. Tuchel tasted such glory as recently as 2021. 
True, it would have been a wonderful endorsement of England’s resolve to nurturing homegrown managers if Carsley had been given the keys. But the inescapable truth is that he was not ready. Carsley needed just three Nations League games to acknowledge as much himself. And so the only responsible course of action, pursued with the interim manager’s blessing, was to turn to a globally-recognised name, a person with the calibre to haul a restless nation over a line that has eluded it for 58 years.
How can Tuchel’s nationality be deemed disqualifying when the European triumph in 2022 by England’s women, led by a Dutchwoman, drew such universal love that there was a festival in Trafalgar Square? Against that backdrop, why should a German manager be unpalatable? Give or take the odd inflatable Spitfire, we are beyond the old Nineties jingoism of “Achtung, Surrender” headlines. Equally, there is no rule that football should be an exception when it comes to the England manager being English. There was little hue and cry at the rugby team opting after a failed World Cup for an Australian. And there was not a murmur at the cricket team moving after a dismal Ashes for a New Zealander.
Think of it another way. In 2024, no sporting death has triggered as much of an outpouring as that of Sven-Goran Eriksson. One vital reason for this was England fans’ recollection of how skilfully he had handled the fierce initial opposition to being the team’s first foreign-born manager, neutralising the backlash with humour, grace, and a few rousing results. To denigrate Tuchel purely on the basis of his lineage would be to insult Eriksson’s memory. His arrival should instead be celebrated for what it is: a shot of electricity for a team who desperately need to energise their public afresh.