Thomas Tuchel is back on the big football stage. For the first time, the former coach of FC Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund is taking over a national team. The fact that it is the English one is met with different reactions in the motherland of football. A newspaper in particular is hard to get a foothold on.
Mirror: “This means the national team will be led by a coach from England’s biggest rival, as it is the first time a German has taken charge.”
Daily Mail: “England must be English down to the last man in the jersey. We don’t need Thomas Tuchel, but a patriot for whom the country comes first, second and third. (…) The coach should be someone who was born and raised in the football culture of this country, someone who is familiar with the best and worst qualities of our country.”
One more time Daily Mail: “Hiring Thomas Tuchel feels like a panicked step in the wrong direction (…) as England puts blind faith in a man who may be more trouble than he’s worth.”
And because that’s obviously not enough, again Daily Mail: “This is a dark day for English football. We are the laughingstock of world football.”
The Sun: “Thomas Tuchel has all the requirements to be a classic English manager – tactical skills, drive, energy, experience – and a tangled love life. English football should welcome back the most explosive, dynamic, charismatic and impossibly tall and lanky coach to ever make a splash in the Premier League.”
Guardian: “It seems (…) that the prospect of Tuchel is an intriguing, heavily loaded appointment that could prove to be a not bad idea. Tuchel for England actually makes a lot of sense.”
The Independent: “The German is able to combine sophisticated modern tactics with competitive pragmatism and knows many of the players from his time at Chelsea. He also has a close friendship with captain Harry Kane from their time together at Bayern Munich.”
