Thomas Tuchel has urged England to “go for it” at the World Cup, despite revealing he questioned whether he was good enough on the eve of the tournament.
Tuchel has opened up on the journey he and his players must go on to “win a big prize” ahead of England’s last-32 clash against the Democratic Republic of Congo in Atlanta on Wednesday.
He has found inspiration from the documentary Rafa, charting the highs and lows of Rafael Nadal’s tennis career, which he finished watching while in the United States.
But that did not stop self-doubt creeping in after he watched England struggle to a 1-0 win in their first World Cup warm-up game in Tampa.
“We all had our losses,” said Tuchel. “We all had our big defeats where you doubted yourself. Ask me how I felt after our 1-0 against New Zealand. I still remember thinking ‘Am I good enough, am I good enough? Did I get this right? OK, let’s keep on’. It’s just the way it is. It is just normal, but you accept it. And if you want to win a big prize, there is not an easy route to get there.”
Tuchel is a big tennis fan and referenced the Rafa documentary after it was pointed out that it is 10 years since an England squad featuring Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford, John Stones and Jordan Henderson were dumped out of the European Championship by Iceland.
“Yes, but you will not find great athletes who didn’t suffer big defeats,” said Tuchel. “You just don’t find them. I just finished a documentary with Rafa Nadal. And even me, I thought he just wins every match out there every year. But you see, wow, a year of injuries, a heavy loss there, another big defeat, doubts, sleepless nights, self-doubts and questioning. Everyone around him doubting it. Even if you have scars, it is just the way it is. There is no way you get through this without.
“Yes, we have some scars. It helps you, actually. It helps you to remember the moment, how painful it was. But it is always possible to redirect your energy. It is always possible to redirect your focus. I was not there 10 years ago, I don’t see how this has anything to do with what we do now. So go for it [at the World Cup].”
If England are to go all the way, they will have to do it without the help of Tuchel’s “lucky trainers” that inspired Chelsea’s Champions League success under him. Tuchel hailed the impact of a pair of “lucky” Hoka running trainers that he wore for the final of the Champions League in 2021, but the German has not brought them to the World Cup.
“I know where they are, but it doesn’t fit the story,” said Tuchel. “It would be a bit artificial. So I don’t see the connection between these shoes and the World Cup. If I was ever to bring the shoes, they can never come early, they can only come when you arrive in a final.”
Tuchel revealed he has replaced the trainers with a new lucky charm or superstition in the US, but would not reveal what it is.
“Yeah, but I would never tell you,” said Tuchel, smiling. “I brought stuff, of course, my daughters give me stuff and everything, I have my routines and my things I cannot talk about. I believe if I tell you, then it’s bad luck.”
How Tuchel became a knockout football master
It was over lunch with a small group of journalists in Cobham, Surrey, that Thomas Tuchel admitted he had only watched England thrash San Marino 10-0 out of the corner of his eye “while playing with the kids”.
Tuchel was Chelsea head coach at the time and was holding court in a private room at the Bear pub six months after winning the Champions League in 2021.
England had beaten San Marino 10-0 in a World Cup qualifier with a team that featured two of his Chelsea players at the time, Reece James and Conor Gallagher. Harry Kane, who scored four goals in the game, was one of six members of Tuchel’s current 26-man England squad who featured.
But Tuchel had not been particularly interested, explaining he only really enjoyed international football when the major tournaments came around. One suspects it only held his full attention once the knockout stages were underway.
Now head coach of England, Tuchel has promised his team will “step up” in the knockout phase of the World Cup as they prepare for a last-32 clash against the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is certainly an environment in which the German has thrived.
Tuchel is the only Chelsea coach to have reached the Champions League, Club World Cup, FA Cup and Carabao Cup finals. He won two of them, as well as the Super Cup.
“I just love it [knockout football], I just love it,” said Tuchel. “It just gives an extra edge. It’s what makes the FA Cup special and the Carabao Cup. But, listen, like the first rounds of the FA Cup and the rounds of 32s, and in the Carabao Cup, they’re not sexy. They’re not glamorous. You need to overcome them and later it becomes glamorous, it becomes a big event.
“Like in the Champions League, the first rounds, you need to overcome it. You need to progress out of the group and then you need to find the win. You need to wear opponents down.”
It is no surprise and probably no coincidence that two of England’s best performances under Tuchel have come on the two occasions when it felt like there had been some jeopardy.
Last September’s trip to Serbia had been billed as the game that would define the World Cup qualifying campaign and England responded with a superb 5-0 victory. Drawing 2-2 at half-time against Croatia in England’s first match of the tournament, the second half in Dallas seemed destined to decide which side would progress as Group L winners and Tuchel’s team talk inspired a thrilling 4-2 victory.
Other than that, most of the international games Tuchel has been in charge of have been the type of one-sided mismatches he would have previously only had on the television in the background.
Following the Croatia victory, Ghana and Panama frustrated England for long periods and Tuchel has warned it is likely to be more of the same against Congo in the last 32. But supporters will be glued to their screens to see whether his team progresses to the last 16.
Tuchel said: “Every one of you [the media] expects us to win, every one of the fans expects us to win, so we’re just matching at the moment our own expectations. There is not a lot of gain. There’s not a lot of praise.
“It can be tiring, it can be a bit nerve-wracking. It can be monotonous to break this block down. But that’s where the energy goes to and that’s where the mindset has to be, that we don’t freak out.”
Critics of Tuchel may claim the 135 minutes of football against Serbia and Croatia are the only times we have seen England play the sort of football he was appointed for. But more optimistic types would point to them as evidence of why he and his players will be able to turn it on now the World Cup really starts to get interesting.
This may be Tuchel’s first major tournament in charge of a national team, but he has already proved himself to be a cup manager capable of setting up his team to beat any opponent when everything is on the line.
Chelsea’s victory over Manchester City in the final of the Champions League, which was high on the agenda during those couple of hours at the Bear, remains Tuchel’s biggest achievement and demonstrates how he is able to grasp the upper hand.
Tuchel and his staff had calculated that at least one of Rodri or Fernandinho had featured in 55 of City’s 56 games ahead of the final and had prepared accordingly. But on the team bus on the way to the Estádio do Dragão in Porto, one member of Tuchel’s staff showed him the news that Pep Guardiola had left the pair out on a mobile telephone.
Rather than stick to the plan he had already drilled his players on, Tuchel immediately set about making last-minute key adjustments to reflect City’s selection and Chelsea pulled off a win against the odds.
After a defeat to Juventus in the following season’s Champions League, Tuchel told his players they did not need to “pass, pass, pass” just to try to look nice. He did not see them as a possession team and believed they lost something while trying to be something they were not. The week after the intimate lunch with journalists, two months after they had lost in Turin, Chelsea entertained Juventus at Stamford Bridge and won 4-0.
An ability to react, adapt and meticulously prepare can be tracked all the way back to the first final of Tuchel’s coaching career, when his Borussia Dortmund team were beaten by Guardiola’s Bayern Munich on penalties in the final of the 2016 DFB-Pokal.
Despite taking Guardiola’s team all the way to a penalty shoot-out, Tuchel was angry with himself for forgetting to plan for one. Since then, no stone has been left unturned and he has gone on to win eight knockout cup competitions across three clubs.
“We prepared everything for this match,” said Tuchel. “I prepared everything. And then the whistle went [after extra time] and I was just not prepared. I forgot to prepare for a penalty shoot-out. So we ended up asking the players ‘Do you want to shoot? Do you want to shoot? Do you want to shoot?’ And they were ready for it. They were: one, two, three, four, five, we go. But we [the staff] were absolutely not ready and we lost it. So a very painful experience and a big, big scar on me, because I felt really, really badly that I had let myself down.
“It will never happen again. So from there, we started our own programme, our own preparation. Now I go into the FA and I have – on the highest level, since years and years – a penalty programme that is so easy [for me to] just [pick up] and wait for people to tell me who are the best shooters. We trained it. We have a process in place. So we are prepared.
“This has become such an important part, a very special part of football now, that you can prepare and do the best to be prepared, which we did. So we know exactly what is going to happen and the platform is there.
“There is still no guarantee that you will win it. I had crazy penalty shoot-outs. Against Liverpool [with Chelsea in the 2022 League Cup final], for example, with 11 [penalties] against 11 or whatever. But now [the preparation] is on the highest level, thanks to the FA, of course, and thanks to my development.”
Unlike in 2021 when they were up against San Marino, Tuchel will not be able to take his eyes off England in Atlanta against Congo and his record in knockout tournaments certainly demands the full attention of his rivals.