Today should have been Thomas Tuchel’s inauguration day.
The man who signed to be England manager on October 8, and was unveiled to the world as such eight days later, could have been starting his tenure this month. He could be announcing his first England squad today, meeting his players for the first time on Monday, flying to Athens next Wednesday, coaching his first game against Greece a day later and then his second against the Republic of Ireland the following Sunday.
It would have been a low-key start to his time as England manager, scrapping to get out of the second tier of the Nations League. It would not have had the high-stakes buzz of the World Cup qualification campaign that should start in March 2025.
But it would have been a start nonetheless. A chance to plant those first seeds in the minds of his players about what he expects from them, to prepare them for the challenges of 2025. Even one intense week of contact time with the squad would have had its uses.
But all of this remains hypothetical. Because this month’s international break is not the start of the Tuchel era. Instead, it is the final voyage of Lee Carsley, the end of the six-game interregnum between Gareth Southgate and Tuchel.
This has been a strange time for an England team trying to find a new identity in the post-Southgate world. There have been new players, a new style, new tactical innovation, but with it a new fragility. This is a team struggling without the guardrails of Gazball, a team far more defensively open than any England side of the recent past.
On the pitch, this mini-era will always be defined by their last game against Greece, at Wembley on October 10, when they were repeatedly cut open on the break, a worse defensive performance than they ever put in under Southgate and Steve Holland — even the 4-0 defeat to Hungary at Molineux, when England conceded late goals after overcommitting in their pursuit of a way back into the game.
Carsley said from the start that his goal was for England to win this group and get back into the top tier of the Nations League. If they do not win in Athens next Thursday, or do not end up in first place, then they will have failed.
But ultimately this phase has been dominated by the more fundamental issue of the identity of the next England manager, whether Carsley would be Southgate’s permanent replacement or whether he even wanted the job in the first place. Almost every media engagement Carsley has done has been dominated by these questions. He never looked comfortable trying to maintain his position of careful neutrality. Twice in the last break, he appeared to suggest that he knew he would not be the next permanent manager. Both times he then tried to extricate himself from the implications of his comments, while only managing to dig himself into a deeper hole.
Now that we know that Carsley will not be the next permanent manager, and will get his wish of returning to the under-21s, it does make you wonder what is gained by having him undertake this final voyage next week. In September this did feel like an audition, even if the FA were conducting their own process behind closed doors. But now that the Carsley question has been settled, why continue to travel down this particular road?
The official line at Tuchel’s unveiling press conference came from FA CEO Mark Bullingham, who insisted that it “made sense on both sides” for Tuchel to start on January 1. The FA had told Carsley he would oversee the whole Nations League campaign. Tuchel wanted to have a “singular focus” on the World Cup campaign, which will start next year. “It was important for me to narrow it down into a project,” Tuchel added, “and not lose the focus. I wanted to have a clean start.” (It should also be remembered that Tuchel’s full backroom staff have not yet been finalised, and that his assistant, Anthony Barry, will be working with Portugal this month.)
But many people will have read those words and felt that they did not quite stand up. People will still wonder why exactly the manager the FA were so proud to recruit is not taking over for so long. Tuchel himself admitted that “we will not have a lot of time” given that his first game will be in March 2025. Assuming two games in each international break, and two preparation friendlies before the World Cup, that means England’s first game in the USA — assuming they qualify — will be his 15th or so in the job. That is such a tight turnaround that it makes little sense to forego the learning opportunities that two more games this month would have presented.
Tuchel may well want to start with a World Cup qualification game, rather than getting involved with the Nations League, but even that is outside of his control. If England finish second in their group, as they are now, or drop to third, they will be playing Nations League play-offs next March rather than World Cup qualifiers. If they are drawn into a World Cup qualification group of four (rather than five) on December 13 then they will not start that campaign until September, almost 11 months after Tuchel signed to take over.
Dead time is a fact of life in international football. No one can blame the FA or Tuchel for how the calendar falls or the gaps between games. But the fundamental fact of international football is the lack of contact time, and this will be the single biggest thing that Tuchel has to learn after a career spent in the club game. Every minute with the players matters.
Which is why it remains so baffling that he will not be involved in any capacity for this month’s games. He is not even halfway through the 12-week waiting period between signing and starting the job. (The incoming President of the United States only needs 11 weeks between election and inauguration.) This month he will instil no ideas, change no thinking, plant no seeds and see nothing up close. Next March he will be starting from scratch with the players. He is only due to start attending Premier League games in the new year.
The England team, meanwhile, will just have to try to navigate through these last two games as best they can, without knowing what their next destination will be.
(Top photo: Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)
