Football: Thomas Tuchel, England coach to try to break 60-year curse?

This Tuesday, at the end of the day, all the journalists who follow the England team were called to Wembley to attend this Wednesday, at the beginning of the evening, a press briefing given by the Director General of the FA (England Federation), over. Mark Bullingham.

At this time, according to the Times and the telegraphthe latter will formally appoint Thomas Tuchel as Three Lions coach, who will be in office from 1 January 2025, for eighteen months. One of his assistants should be the Englishman Anthony Barry, who is currently part of the Portugal selection staff, and with whom the 51-year-old German worked during his time at Chelsea (2021 -2022).

The choice of Tuchel may surprise at first sight, as the previous foreign coaches who had coached England, the Swede Sven-Göran Eriksson (2001-2006) and the Italian Fabio Capello (2007- 2012), have obtained convincing results, but also because until two weeks ago, the FA had not contacted any technician to succeed Gareth Southgate in the long term, who resigned on July 16.

The group then considered giving this position to the man who had been there on an interim basis since last summer, that is Lee Carsley, who was the coach of the English Espoirs, who made a good impression on his first trip with the A, in Ireland (0-2, September 7) and against Finland (2-0, 10).

The biggest challenge in his career

However, in recent days, the FA has reviewed its position after a brutal series of events: a logical defeat which he conceded against Greece Thursday at Wembley (1-2), caused in part by the ineffective game plan agreed by Carsley, clumsy communication from the latter suggesting he did not want to remain in charge of the Three Lions and ultimately . success achieved on Sunday in Finland (1-3) despite poor combined play.

In this context of separation, the day after the stoppage against Greece, German media announced that the FA had made Tuchel a priority. This indeed combines several advantages: he has been free since his departure from Bayern last summer, he benefits from an excellent reputation across the Channel thanks in particular to the C1 he won with Chelsea in 2022, he showed that he can manage noisy egos. and he has already worked with several English internationals (Harry Kane and Eric Dier in Munich, Raheem Sterling and Conor Gallagher at Chelsea…).

Here is now the former PSG coach (2018-2020) who is facing the biggest challenge of his career: managing to win a trophy with England, and if possible the World Cup from 2026 , thus breaking the curse that seems to have plagued this election ever since. crowned at home, during the 1966 World Cup.