"I was standing in front of 50 photographers half a meter away and I could not see one single player." Thomas Tuchel said it publicly after England beat Croatia, and FIFA actually did something about it — fast.
The England manager was visibly frustrated that the pre-game photographer positioning blocked his view of his squad during the national anthem. Not exactly a tactical crisis, but for a manager who described the moment as "very, very special," it clearly stung. "It ruined a little bit my experience today," he admitted.
A fix already in place
FIFA's response was unusually swift. According to The Athletic, the governing body has updated its protocol to allow coaching staffs to stand to the left or right of credentialed photographers during the national anthem. The change was already implemented for Thursday's game between Czechia and South Africa — less than 24 hours after Tuchel went public.
For an organisation that enforces pre-game ceremony positioning with near-military rigidity, that's a notable turnaround.
The root cause is a practical one: most World Cup venues in the United States are NFL stadiums, not football-specific grounds. AT&T Stadium in Dallas, where England played, required field modifications to accommodate a soccer pitch — and those modifications quietly ate into the space available to coaching staffs on the sideline. Less room, more photographers, nowhere to stand.
It's a logistical wrinkle that probably affects more than just Tuchel, even if he was the one willing to say it out loud. Coaches from other nations were almost certainly dealing with the same sightline issues — England's manager just happened to have a big result and a microphone in front of him at the right moment.
The new procedure is in place. Whether it holds up across the remaining venues — and whether other NFL-to-soccer conversions cause similar headaches — is the real question as the tournament goes deeper.
