Is Thomas Tuchel the best manager for the England national team?

Thomas Tuchel is the new manager of the England national team after the FA picked him to lead their team in World Cup qualification and perhaps win the tournament in 2026.

England has been one of the best countries in international football and they reached the final of the last two Euros.

The Three Lions have become one of the best football brands in the world and the work of Gareth Southgate has been immense.

England fans now buy UEFA Nations League tickets and other international match tickets because of how good their team has been since 2017.

Southgate did not have the best of careers, but he was a success by English standards, having played for some clubs and the England national team.

Although his CV was not the best in club management, his work with the England youth teams made him the favourite to take the job when it was given.

Southgate impressed at the 2018 World Cup, 2020 Euros, and the 2024 edition of the same competition before resigning. 

Was it time for Gareth Southgate to leave?

It is quite disturbing how Southgate went from the darling of the English fans to manager that they did not like anymore because of his team’s negative approach to games in 2024.

The Three Lions were poor at Euro 2024, but they reached the final of the competition, and the manager did not deserve the treatment he received from some fans.

He made the most of the talents he had and seamlessly transitioned from one good player to the other in every competition.

Southgate phased out the likes of Raheem Sterling, Adam Lallana and James Milner in the best possible manner, replacing them with better younger players and the team did not struggle.

Having been at the helm since since 2016, there was clearly a lot of expectation on his team by Euro 2024, and most fans expected him to win the competition.

It remains unclear if he changed his tactic so much or not, but England was too boring to watch at the Euros, and the team lacked the chemistry that it had at the 2018 World Cup and Euro 2020.

This is one of the major reasons there were calls for him to leave, and it was the right time for him to do so.

Southgate had to win Euro 2024 because bowing out as a winner of that competition would have been the best possible way for him to leave his role.

As he failed to win it, the gaffer still had to leave for a new man to take the team to the next level, but which other English coach could have replaced him?

Does England have a better local coach?

The decision to appoint a foreign manager to head the England national team has been widely criticised, with Jamie Carragher specifically speaking against it.

The Liverpool idol stopped short of claiming it was the wrong decision, and so many English pundits share a similar view to that of the Sky Sports pundit.

They would rather have an Englishman manage the national team, and these same people had been sentimental about the chance of Lee Carsley getting the job permanently.

Carsley is Irish, and he refused to sing the English national anthem, so he already did not look English enough to get the job. So, which English managers could the FA have chosen for the role?

England has struggled to produce a world-class manager for a long time despite having the best league in the world.

At the moment, Eddie Howe is the best-performing English manager in the top flight. He keeps his job at Newcastle United and continues to perform well.

He was linked to the vacant national team role but reports claim he never got interviewed to get the job. Would he have swapped Newcastle for the Three Lions? We doubt that.

After Howe, the other English manager who is highly rated is Sean Dyche, whose work at Everton has managed to keep them in the Premier League for some time.

However, most English fans would rather have Tuchel manage the national team than the former Burnley boss.

Dyche could make England lose the many years of progress that they made under Southgate because of his terrible style of play.

Kieran McKenna of Ipswich Town is another exciting English manager at the moment, but the Tractor Boys are his first club and they have only just been promoted to the top flight, so he is too inexperienced to become the England manager.

Out of work Graham Potter could have been an acceptable name for patriotic English fans because of the work he did as the manager of Brighton, but his terrible spell at Chelsea meant he could not be trusted.

Will Still of Lens is also an exciting name, especially after the fine job he did at Reims. However, he is not even known by most English fans and couldn’t have gotten the job for lack of experience.

With the above information, it is clear that the best English managers simply do not come close to qualifying as their national team manager over Tuchel.

How have foreign managers done in recent times as England’s manager

England has only had three foreign managers in its history, which shows that they truly love their own and the decision to make Tuchel their gaffer is unusual.

Sven-Göran Eriksson became the first foreign manager of the Three Lions in 2001, with the FA Making him their gaffer in a desperate bid to win a major trophy.

As expected, not everyone liked the decision at the time, but the Swede had proven over a successful career that he could get the job done.

He took England’s golden generation to the quarterfinal of three major competitions in successive campaigns.

Most people believed he could have done more with those sets of players, but he had some memorable moments and won 59% of his matches.

Fabio Capello became the second foreign manager to coach England when he got the job in 2007 and was in charge until 2012 when he resigned after the FA’s decision to strip John Terry of his captaincy.

He won 66% of his matches, and his team looked in good shape ahead of Euro 2012, having reached the round of 16 of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Capello did not have enough time to achieve more with the likes of Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney, but he was a good manager to the team.

None of these foreign coaches helped England to a major final as Southgate did, and he even reached the semi-final of the 2018 World Cup.

English patriots could argue that Southgate’s achievement over the foreign coaches proves that an English coach could do better with the team.

However, the current England generation of players is too good for the FA to test an unqualified coach as their gaffer.

Thomas Tuchel’s record as a manager

Tuchel is entering international management for the first time, which could be tricky for the German, but looking at how he has performed during his managerial career gives England hope.

Tuchel has won a trophy in each of his last four clubs, and they are all major trophies, which makes him a superb tactician for England.

He even won the Champions League as the manager of Chelsea and the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich.

Tuchel loves English football and its players, and it is almost unjustifiable that the FA should have picked another Englishman over the German.