"I'm sorry I have a German passport." That was Thomas Tuchel at his England unveiling — and it set the tone for everything that followed. A quip that landed, a charm offensive that worked, and a qualifying campaign he won without dropping a point. The sceptics went quiet fast.
The Daily Mail called his appointment a "dark day for England." Nigel Farage posted the obligatory outrage on X. And then, fairly quickly, people moved on — because Tuchel gave them nothing to feed on. England won. He smiled at press conferences. End of saga.
What that initial noise actually revealed was less about Tuchel and more about how much Anglo-German relations have shifted. As historian Jan Rüger put it: "Germany really isn't the bad guy anymore. That's long since passed." A German manager would have been unthinkable in the 1990s. Now it barely lasted a news cycle.
The squad that caused real debate
If the passport controversy fizzled, the squad selection sparked genuine disagreement. Tuchel left out Phil Foden, Cole Palmer, and Trent Alexander-Arnold — three players who, at club level, are among the best in Europe. No hedging, no sentimentality, no bowing to public pressure.
"Everything I know about international football tells me that tournaments are won by teams, not individuals," he said. Easy to say. Harder to defend if England go out in the quarters.
Jordan Henderson — 35 years old — got a call-up instead. That's the kind of selection that tells you exactly what kind of manager Tuchel is: he backs character and system fit over reputation. Whether that pays off in a knockout tournament is the whole question.
Kobbie Mainoo, one of the players who did make it, kept it simple: "Everyone in the squad, the staff, everyone believes we can win it." That's exactly what you'd expect a squad player to say, but the belief reportedly runs deeper than the press-conference version.
What Tuchel brings that Southgate couldn't
Gareth Southgate was genuinely good for England. Back-to-back Euro finals, a World Cup semi. He dragged the team out of a decade of dysfunction and made them competitive again. He also couldn't win the thing that mattered, and left after absorbing abuse — literal and figurative — at Euro 2024.
Tuchel can't replicate Southgate's emotional connection with the fanbase. He didn't miss that penalty against Germany in 1996. He's not carrying that weight, and he's not trading on it either.
What he does bring is a Champions League on his CV — won with Chelsea in 2021 — plus league titles in France and Germany. He's coached at PSG, Bayern, and in the Premier League. He knows how to manage egos, how to build a team structure around elite players, and how to navigate the pressure of a knockout tournament. England's odds of going deep look better with him than most of his 13 predecessors.
Still, history is useful context here. Bobby Robson won trophies at club level. So did Eriksson. So did Capello. None of them could do it with England. The job has a way of humbling even the best coaches.
In Kane, Bellingham, and Rice, Tuchel has the firepower to go all the way. Whether he's figured out how to use it better than everyone before him is what the next few weeks will answer.
