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October 17, 2024 - 11:55am
The appointment of Thomas Tuchel as England manager has been a shock to the system for many football fans. A foreign candidate for the national team is always a difficult sell. A German specifically takes that to a whole new level, given the longstanding footballing rivalry between the two countries. But Tuchel will be intensely committed to the job, not despite being German but because he is German.
Predictably, the outrage following the announcement was loud in some corners of the British Press. “A dark day for England”, declared The Daily Mail, adding: “We are the laughing stock of the world game.” Gary Lineker said with a wry smile that “having a German coach is interesting”, and admitted that Tuchel would not have been his first choice.
For many people in England, the very idea of having a German manager is anathema. The German national team remains the arch-enemy even if the media has toned down the war jokes a bit. Headlines like “Let’s Blitz Fritz” (The Sun, 1996) may be gone. But Lineker hasn’t forgotten the pain of moments such as the 1990 World Cup, which West Germany won after beating England on penalties in the semi-final — and neither have fans.
Even if few of the critics of Tuchel’s appointment would explicitly name their concerns, at the core is the doubt that a German manager could ever truly want England to win, given how much emotion is tangled up in this footballing rivalry. As understandable as this is from an English point of view, it’s not how Tuchel will view his role.
The footballing rivalry between England and Germany has always been lopsided. After all, the pain was mostly one-sided, too. Yes, there is the 1966 World Cup final, which West Germany lost to England, but few people in Germany feel actively aggrieved about that. Whatever the current problems of the German national team, it can still boast four World Cups and three European Championships in its history.
Germany has been runner-up the same number of times in each tournament, but these near-misses take on a different context in light of the comparatively regular wins. The agony over them also spreads across different teams. Growing up in Germany in the Nineties and early 2000s, I most vividly remember the Netherlands being among Germany’s favourite football enemies, possibly because the Dutch won the 1988 European Championship final in West Germany after beating the hosts in a tense semi-final.
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SubscribeMy immediate thought in jest is “Does Cpl.Jones know about this?” Seriously though, he sounds like a good coach and hopefully will be a good England manager.
Who cares provided he can actually manage and produce results? However he may not fully realise how loaded with poison that chalice is…
About time we simply acknowledge the German’s have succeeded much better at this game than us since 1966, even when they competed with half a country! It’s a results game and he’ll be judged on that hopefully not on his passport or ‘Germanness’ – maybe some bigotry might disappear too if he does well – I mean Klopp was well liked outside Liverpool for what he did and how he was as a man I say that as an Everton fan who he managed to rile on many an occasion!
You could pronounce Tuchel “Tutchell” and pretend that it was English. But the Patron of the Football Association is Prince William, and his real surname is Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. Good luck with that.