England Hopes Thomas Tuchel Can Turn Champions League Success Into World Cup Glory

He might have won the UEFA Champions League, but England’s appointment of a foreign head coach is certainly going to split opinions. One person even said “it is a little surprising that the motherland of football has ignored a sacrosanct law” that the head coach should be from the same country as the players.

That person wasn’t a so-called “little Englander.” It was Sepp Blatter, speaking in 2008 as head of FIFA. He was describing the hiring then of Italian Fabio Capello as England boss.

Capello won the Champions League with Milan in 1994. His England side though barely got out of second gear in South Africa and were eliminated from the 2010 World Cup in the round of 16 after trudging through the group stage with draws against the USA and Algeria.

Will Thomas Tuchel be different? Like Capello, he has a star-studded resume including the Champions League, but no experience coaching at international level. But he has coached in England before, knows the Premier League well from his time at Chelsea, and is reportedly something of an Anglophile. His mission is simple, it is to get a second star on what he called “our shirt” in his first message to England fans.

Gareth Southgate, for all he achieved with England, fell twice at the final hurdle. He was criticized for his tactical decisions during England’s biggest games. Tuchel masterminded a win over Manchester City and Pep Guardiola in the biggest game in European club soccer.

England could’ve appointed an English head coach, which might be seen as the better route to long-term coaching development. But instead, the FA went for the candidate they believe is most likely to get England over the line and end all those years of hurt.

Since Capello’s Champions League win, seven more Champions League-winning head coaches have gone on to coach international teams. Tuchel will be the eighth.

The most recent was Hansi Flick, who won the Champions League with Bayern Munich in 2020. His Germany side were eliminated from the 2022 World Cup in the group stage, which even for a team supposedly “in transition” is an underachievement – so much so that he has the unenviable honor of being the first head coach ever to be sacked by Germany.

Luis Enrique lifted UEFA’s top trophy with Barcelona in 2015, but also underperformed in Qatar, with Spain losing on penalties to Morocco in the round of 16.

Louis Van Gaal coached the Netherlands on three occasions since his 1996 Champions League triumph with Ajax. His national team efforts had mixed results, but he did reach the 2014 World Cup semi-finals.

Two head coaches in the past thirty years though have achieved what Tuchel is dreaming of — winning both the Champions League and the World Cup.

Marcello Lippi achieved the feat with Juventus and Italy, who beat France in a penalty shootout to lift the World Cup in 2006. Vincente Del Bosque won the Champions League twice with Real Madrid, before inheriting a strong Spain side and winning a back-to-back World Cup and European Championship.

History suggests that the top honor on Thomas Tuchel’s CV isn’t enough on its own to guarantee success. But that CV is better than any of the potential English candidates by some margin.

Unlike Capello and some of the Champions League winners, Tuchel is still very much at the peak of his managerial career, and was named the best coach in the world by FIFA only three years ago. England might have broken soccer’s “sacrosanct” laws, but if Tuchel helps Harry Kane lift the World Cup trophy at the Metlife Stadium in 18 months’ time, few England fans will care.