Well, it didn’t feel like a birthright sale or a betrayal of Albion. Maybe if you squinted a bit, or just heard the vowel sounds. Perhaps if you’ve already performed some kind of ad hoc self-lobotomy using a chisel made from cheddar cheese, pork pie meat and fear. Maybe then, maybe then.
But also perhaps not, because Thomas Tuchel’s first squad conference was in the event a highly convincing production, expertly phrased, and hitting just the right note of hope versus realism. So yeah. Good luck with that. How far can we go with this? Because as ever the dynamic remains the same, an appointment to this strange semi-sporting role that will tell us a great deal more about England than the latest smiling man in front of the boards covered in adverts.
There were some notes of interest in the squad selection. Jordan Henderson you say? Finally, we’re ready to move on and take that final step. But mainly this was a fluent, quietly spiky reminder that this is just a matter of managing talent, that Tuchel is a supremely bright anglophile and a logical choice in many ways, if not in every way. And above all that he has a shot here at actually making this work.
Best of all was the keynote, hit with reassuring certainty: it all felt very Premier League. Here is a well-briefed European man talking about football. This has to be the right way to go for the current 18-month mission. Modernise, internationalise. Represent the league English football has given the world, not the one it wishes it had.
For now it was a fascinating process just taking in the new set of visual cues. After seven years of Southgate energy, after Lee Carsley’s enjoyably twinkly garden gnome in yoga pants act, here is a new thing, new toy, a new set of lines and sounds. What is it? Is it good? How can we ruin it?
The first impressions were crisp and moreish. Tuchel is all jaw, cheekbones, boggly eyes, restless intelligence, sitting there in fitted black knitwear looking like a heroic wartime submariner explaining nuclear fusion to a room full of potentially tricky mid-ranking officers.
He spoke really well. He dodged the obvious fault lines, and even got in some snappy passive-aggressive comebacks. But then, for all the stuff about bloodlines, about inexplicably wanting to see his children in Germany sometimes, about the imaginary lineup of English coaches ready to fill the role, this is a good and measured appointment.
Tuchel is the first England manager to have worked in the league and won the European Cup. He’s more or less a continuity choice when it comes to the pathway DNA stuff, if only because that text was cobbled together out of pretty much all modern coaching methods. He brings some actual knowledge of how to win big games when the world is shouting at you.
And yes, there is a subtext to all these early sessions. The England job drives people mad. First the ones around the edge. Eventually the person in the centre. How will Tuchel go insane? Which personal characteristic will be picked out and magnified by all that heat?
Roy Hodgson ended up tieless and sleepless in Nice, muttering about logistics, blinking like some casino-lounge vampire. Southgate was steadily pared back, from garrulous wedding guest to parched and desiccated frontier preacher. Fabio Capello entered and left the job as a mute and angry waxwork.
How will they go for Tuchel? Will it be the football? Too slow, too complex? Will it be going back to Germany on holiday? Long distance Tom. Tommy T’s day off. Loopy Tom the mad professor. Herr today gone tomorrow. Bad to Wurst. For you Tommy the World Cup is over.
Or maybe none of these. Because Tuchel was pretty good in his first serious engagement. His word cloud was varied and engaging. He talked about emotions, values, love, building a brotherhood. He dismissed the captaincy question with a pfft (“It’s just Harry”).
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Asked about Myles Lewis-Skelly’s selection he replied: “I can understand that feels a little bit like we fast-forwarded a career that was already on a fast pace. I can assure you that the talks in the last days and weeks had a parental vibe.” At which point one obvious point presents itself. Can we just clear it up. Tuchel’s English is more sophisticated than anything on show in the newspaper columns accusing him of not being able to speak the language.
Wary and well-briefed, he skipped across some obvious traps. Yes, he was proud and honoured be the first German manager of England. He refused flat out to answer a question in German. Are you insane? He dropped in – casual flex – that he knows Prince William, banters with him about Aston Villa, and has been to Windsor Castle. Tuchel even looks like a surprisingly successful royal cousin, the ears, the hairline, the bones. Is this enough England?
There was no mention of the ghost at the table, Sir Gareth, although there was something in Tuchel’s talk about style. We will play to the Premier league template, he insisted, an excellent response because this means nothing and everything. Maresca? Or Moyes? But it is right to speak about intensity and physicality. Who doesn’t like those? It is also probably a good point. If England had played like an assertive Premier League team in those finals they might have won one of them. This feels like something Tuchel may actually be able to add.
Otherwise, the squad is good. Dan Burn is a populist choice. This is Tuchel’s independence for the Bank of England moment, his budget giveaways. And there will be a honeymoon period here, as news media and front pages cotton on to the fact that he’s eloquent, handsome and charming. Although this will have to happen in hyper-quick mode because this is of course a win-things-now gambit.
There is a slight paradox here. Is Tuchel really some kind of up-and-coming serial winner? For a while he had a reputation for almost winning things. The last time he managed a team for a whole season and won a meaningful trophy was five years ago at Paris Saint-Germain. He has also never been involved in a game of international football as coach or player. Is this going to work? Is there even any notion of what working is, given the general delusion over the level of English players, and the fact it seems only winning the World Cup will now be considered success.
For now it seems likely Tuchel will start well, will capture some refreshing new energy, out there in his skinny-legged slacks, saying amusing things in press conferences. England will do quite well next year. But the home Euros in 2028 still feels a more realistic prospect.
For now, here it is, coming around again, another voyage into the storm, another doomed love affair; underpinned this time by a different kind of competence, a different accent, and one or two odd notes in the weeks to come with the usual stuff about bombers and Great Escapes. For now, just get on the bus, Thomas. Don’t let them trip you up. And as we say around here, Good Luck.