"I'm sorry I have a German passport." Thomas Tuchel said it with a grin at his unveiling, but the headlines that morning weren't laughing. The Daily Mail called it a "dark day for England." Nigel Farage asked why no Englishman was good enough. And then Tuchel went out and won every single World Cup qualifier.
The noise died down fast.
Now England head into a World Cup with a Champions League-winning coach, three of Europe's most coveted players in Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham and Declan Rice — and a 60-year wait that has outlasted empires, currencies and most of their managers' credibility.
The squad that turned heads
Tuchel's selection was the first real signal that this isn't going to be managed by committee. Phil Foden is out. Cole Palmer is out. Trent Alexander-Arnold is out. Players who would walk into almost any other international squad on the planet, left at home.
"Everything I know about international football tells me that tournaments are won by teams, not individuals," he said. That's easy to say. It's harder to justify when the individuals you've dropped were among the best performers in the Premier League this season.
The counter-argument is that Tuchel has done this before — at Chelsea, at Bayern, at PSG — built functional, ruthless units rather than collections of talent. He won the Champions League with Chelsea in 2021 while opponents were still trying to figure out his back three. He knows what a tournament winner looks like from the inside.
Jordan Henderson, 35, made the cut. Whatever you think of that call, it's consistent with his philosophy — leaders and structure over raw ability.
What England actually needs
Gareth Southgate rebuilt England's emotional connection with the game after years of chaos and cynicism. Back-to-back European Championship finals and a World Cup semifinal. By any objective measure, the second most successful England manager in history. He still had plastic cups thrown at him in 2024.
Tuchel can't replicate that connection — he wasn't in the Wembley stands in 1996, he didn't grow up with the weight of it. What he brings instead is a clinical detachment from the mythology. He doesn't need England to win to validate his career. He already has the trophies.
That could be exactly what's needed. Every England manager since Alf Ramsey has operated under the suffocating pressure of 1966. Tuchel treats it like a project.
Kobbie Mainoo said it plainly: "Everyone in the squad, the staff, everyone believes we can win it." Belief has never been England's problem at the start of a tournament. The question is always what happens when it gets difficult.
With Kane leading the line and Bellingham capable of moments that change games, England's odds going into this are not fanciful. But the history of this team says the last thing you should do is take them at face value in the knockout rounds.
