What will England’s Thomas Tuchel era look like?

Former Bayern Munich coach Thomas Tuchel has officially signed his deal as next England manager, according to reports.

The German has big clubs on his resume — Bayern, Borussia Dortmund, Chelsea FC, Paris Saint-Germain among them — but often, the story ended messily. What will his England tenure look like?

Tuchel’s time in Bavaria was tumultuous. It started ugly, ended ugly, and truth be told was pretty ugly all along the way. Just this week Bayern honorary president Uli Hoeneß derided the whole era as a “catastrophe” for the club for the 51-year-old’s insipid style of play — but on international level, that might just work.

Gareth Southgate left the England post this summer despite two consecutive EURO Final appearances and solid results at the past two Men’s World Cups as well. The Englishman was never stylish except for off the field, but sure managed to get results on it, preferring practicality over art. That sounds like a leaf right out of Tuchel’s book.

But Southgate also managed personalities well in perhaps one of the most challenging environments to do so in international football. The English are full of expectation, still waiting for football to properly come home, and have selection headaches at every position. Tuchel is a strong personality — he’s just left some past locker rooms in tatters.

At England, though, Tuchel will re-united with Harry Kane, the Bayern Munich striker who came in under Tuchel and immediately challenged Robert Lewandowski’s Bundesliga single-season scoring record. That’s not a bad place to start, and Kane has already spoken amiably about his former coach.

Still, Tuchel will have a bumpy road ahead. By the end of the Southgate era, England was beginning to lose its way, with muddled tactics accompanying muddled results and memes (NSFW) slagging the coach’s inability to create better product from his star-studded cast.

Tuchel will need to develop a coherent tactical identity quickly and decide. Stay the course on pragmatism, or try to implement higher-level club football ideas at national level? Play the creative, free-flowing football that some of his stars with Manchester City and Liverpool FC are used to, or the sometimes self-suffocating, results-oriented style that got an up-and-down Bayern team past the likes or Arsenal FC in last year’s Champions League?

The international trend is veering towards flair. Former Bayern coach Julian Nagelsmann is showing the way with Germany, and EURO 2024 winners Spain remain as good an advertisement as ever for the beautiful game. The USMNT, too, has hired former Tottenham Hotspur man Mauricio Pochettino. More and more, national teams aspire towards the romantic.

In Tuchel, England has perhaps the foil to that approach. A sharp football mind with decades of experience, but one not afraid to play brutal football to win. It is a sensible approach: to evolve from the Southgate era, and gun for the one thing it could never achieve — silverware.

Or maybe, England doesn’t really know what it wants, any more than Bayern did when they axed Nagelsmann and embarked on an era it now seems to regard as an obvious mistake.

Per a Sky News report, England swung for the fences with this one — going so far as to inquire with Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola (ha!). Other names mentioned were as varied as former Liverpool FC manager Jürgen Klopp to Premier League veterans Graham Potter and Eddie Howe. If there is a specific profile targeted here, it isn’t apparent — just big names, all over the map.

Photo by FRANCK FIFE/AFP via Getty Images

If the German MNT’s own travails — from the end of the Joachim Löw tenure through the ill-fated stint of Hansi Flick — offer any lessons, it may be that coherence in vision is more important than big names and shiny resumes.

Tuchel won a Champions League trophy at Chelsea FC. Bayern thought that counted for something, too. His next task will be much, much bigger.

No matter how it shakes out, the stage is set for an entertaining FIFA 2026 Men’s World Cup. And from a Bayern perspective, no less than two recently-sacked managers — with highly contrasting visions and no shortage of personal history — will now be competing there.

Maybe even head-to-head. Wouldn’t that be something?

Looking for more thoughts and analysis from Germany’s 1-0 victory over the Netherlands? Awesome, then we have you covered with our Bavarian Podcast Works — Postgame Show where our Jack Lauschway breaks down the match. Jack gives you all the analysis you need from the game, along with where the German national team might be headed. You can get the podcast on Patreon, Spotify, and below:

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