Uh oh. When the identity of Gareth Southgate’s permanent successor was revealed on Tuesday, you worried for those who had spontaneously combusted over his interim replacement choosing not to sing-a-long-a God Save the King.
By its standards, though, the Daily Mail was quite moderate in its response to the appointment of Thomas Tuchel: “It’s a dark day for England as the manager’s job goes to a GERMAN,” read the headline over their comment piece. Admittedly, ‘German’ in all-caps hinted that they weren’t entirely over the moon.
But the reaction that most of us anticipated with bated breath was that of the same paper’s Jeff Powell, the man who was so angry about anthem-gate that he called for Lee Carsley to be sacked before his first game for “deferring to his Republican antecedents”.
Jeff, as ever, didn’t disappoint.
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He recalled his displeasure when Sweden’s Sven-Göran Eriksson got the England job, which meant that “the birthright of the country which gave football to the world was being sold to someone from a nation of cross-country skiers who spend half their lives in darkness”.
Italian Fabio Capello was, he wrote, “an even more disappointing mercenary”, but he expects “Herr Tuchel” to be worse again. “When the sauerkraut goes the way of the smorgasbord and the pasta, will the euro finally drop,” he asked. If he’d used spaghetti instead of pasta, the alliteration would have been glorious, but no matter.
Jeff’s main argument, of course, was that the manager should be English, “a patriot for whom it is always England first, second and third”. He even insisted that their kit man should be English, possibly because a pesky foreigner wouldn’t pack shirts, shorts and socks with the same patriotic fervour.
He knew “the merchants of woke” would call him a “Little Englander”, but, he asked, “how can a foreigner urge Englishmen to do or die on football’s battlefield? Could a Swede, an Italian or a German have roused the troops like King Henry V when he implored his men: ‘On, on unto the breach dear friends or let close the wall up with our English dead.’” (James Corrigan, the Telegraph’s golf correspondent, unhelpfully pointed out that Henry V was actually Welsh).
It wasn’t all negativity, though. Over on GB News, between ads for retirement villages and a Winston Churchill gold coin (“limited to one per household”), Martin Daubney welcomed Tuchel’s appointment, even if “he looks a bit like that fella out of Steptoe and Son”.
And there was enthusiasm too from the bulk of the passersby the station spoke to around Stamford Bridge, although one man wearing a Chelsea training top with a Chelsea lanyard draped around his neck, who appeared to have enjoyed a liquid lunch, had gone blank on the period between January 2021 and September 2022. “I don’t actually recognise his name from any Premier League club,” he said.
The Redknapps, meanwhile, were at odds, ‘Arry having the ‘ump because Tuchel isn’t English and “it’s not like he’s been a massive success”, he said of the man who has won the Champions League with Chelsea and league titles in France and Germany. Jamie was happy, though, noting that Tuchel is now “the second most important person in this country, behind the prime minister”, Buckingham Palace rescinding his invite to their next garden party as we speak.
Back in the press, the Telegraph’s chief football writer Sam Wallace was on Harry’s side, also insisting the manager needed to be English, his piece topped by a photo of Tuchel in lederhosen supping beer during Munich’s Oktoberfest lest we didn’t know he was German. The Sun was more upbeat, though, “Fussball kommt nach hause” their headline, as was the Daily Mirror: “The New Kaiser Chief”. But over in Germany, Bild was gobsmacked: “The motherland of football is getting a German dad!” Jeff would have needed smelling salts on reading that.
But if England win the 2026 World Cup, perhaps beating Germany on penalties in the final, all might be forgiven. As Micky Quinn told GB News, “he could be the final jigsaw”. If not, he’ll be ripped to pieces.
