Thomas Tuchel, ‘aura’ and his crash course for England’s players

One of the first words Morgan Rogers used to describe Thomas Tuchel was “aura”.

Rogers only met Tuchel in person for the first time at St George’s Park on Monday. The Aston Villa attacking midfielder had already been on a video call with the new England manager since the latter started in the role on January 1, the German introducing himself, as he did to dozens of other English players. But it wasn’t until Rogers arrived at England’s training base on Monday morning that he got to spend time with the new coaching team.

The 22-year-old, who only made his senior international debut in November under interim manager Lee Carsley, was struck by how Tuchel carried himself, how he radiated calm confidence and how he naturally inspired respect. “The presence is a bit different,” Rogers tried to explain. “Certain managers have different ways about them. His aura is one I’ve not experienced before.”

That aura is the absolute necessity of the Tuchel era.

This whole project will only get off the ground if the players buy straight into what their new leader is selling. With the 2026 World Cup so close, there is no time for gradually getting to know each other, for tentative first steps, teething pains or learning curves. The commitment has to be deep, unequivocal and, above all, instant.

This is the only way England will reach the target Tuchel has set. He has been unembarrassed and unambiguous about his goal in this new job: lifting the World Cup after winning the final on July 19 next year. He wants to add a second star above the badge on the England team’s shirts.

The players have internalised that message before the opening group-stage qualifiers, both at Wembley, against Albania on Friday and Latvia three days later. It was the main takeaway from Tuchel’s meeting with them on Monday evening. And with that goal as their clear north star, everything else is about how to do it.

“That’s the only goal,” Rogers said of winning the World Cup. “He was very clear and transparent with what he wants to do, how he wants to do it, how he wants to go about it, what he sees in us, and what we need to improve. It was very straight-up, no cutting corners. It was straight, and that’s how he is.”

It hasn’t started yet but this already feels like a different England campaign. There are usually months of discourse before every tournament about whether England can win it, the players think they can win it, they have said that they can win it, if they expect to win it, how best they tread that line between confidence and arrogance. It is as English as a debate about whether the camp where they’ll be based during the finals is too remote, too central, too boring or too fun. Tuchel has cut this particular knot on day one.

The 51-year-old former Borussia Dortmund, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich coach knows how little time he has to work on the things that do matter. One of the themes of Tuchel’s first few days with the players is how little time they all have together. Tuchel will only be with his squad for 60 days between now and, assuming qualification is achieved between now and next March, the start of their World Cup campaign in 15 months’ time. Given the commitment to play matches and the travel, that means only 24 training days until their first match in either the United States, Canada or Mexico.

This feels like the defining fact of the Tuchel era.

International football has always been about coaches making the most of limited contact time with their players. This is not a problem only for Tuchel. Mauricio Pochettino, who took up international management on roughly the same timescale as him when he took charge of the U.S. national team in October, explained the issue this way: “We have one disadvantage and one advantage. The disadvantage is that you don’t have time. The advantage is that the players are so focused. It is completely different (to club football) the focus, the discipline and energy they apply when they come.”

The challenge for Tuchel is to harness that intense focus during his limited time with the players and to make every minute count as he tries to form them into a new “brotherhood” aiming for that World Cup final, to teach them a new, physically aggressive style of play to get them there. “Every moment is important, every training session is important,” as Rogers puts it. That is why perhaps the most revealing thing Tuchel has said since taking over was that he would be giving the players a “crash course” in his brand of football.

Tuchel has told his players every single training session is important (Carl Recine/Getty Images)

It felt like the least Gareth Southgate thing to come out of Tuchel’s mouth. England’s Southgate era was all about painstaking cultural change, methodically building a new identity and ethos brick by brick. It was the calling of his life and even without a trophy to show for it when he stepped down in July after almost eight years, it was still profoundly important, successful, meaningful work.

Tuchel underlined this was a whole new era with some very frank comments on Thursday about England’s struggles at Euro 2024. It would have been easy for him to praise their campaign and move on, but instead he spelled out in detail how he sensed the “tension and pressure” in the England camp even watching them on television. His conclusion — that England were more “afraid” of losing than they were excited by winning — was damning

Clearly, Tuchel is not Southgate. He has not spent years inside the FA, working in elite development and then coaching England Under-21s before getting the top job. He does not have a lifelong commitment to turning English players into winners and changing the perception of them around the world. He does not have personal history with England’s national team, with the prospect of personal redemption at the end. For Tuchel, this is not a vocation, just a job, and only an 18-month one at that.

So Tuchel will have to move faster. Nobody will demand that he has a view on social topics far removed from his daily work. Nobody expects him to be a spokesman for the soul of the national game. All he has to do is get the players he picks to fit together and believe in each other. Get them to believe in him. It is the work of elite football management.

It could even end at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey next summer with Tuchel as the most important figure in English football history, but if it is to get England anywhere near where they want to be on that July day, it will need to be done at breakneck speed.

(Top photo: Tuchel leading his players at training; by Eddie Keogh/Getty Images)