tacticsjournal.com
Thomas Tuchel on managing England's mixed emotions after the World Cup
England manager Thomas Tuchel on whether Spain’s possession-based identity gave them an advantage: I think it is an advantage in general, not only against us but against everyone. This is how they play, train and are brought up. It is clearly part of them. But the more you analyse Spain and their last matches, the more you have to admire the way they defend. They added this to their work against the ball. It is collective work, and they are masters at delaying and pushing you into wide areas where they can initiate the press. They have world-class goalkeepers, but they are hardly tested. It is so difficult for every team in the world to create chances against them. We have a plan and ambition, and we want to be the ones who prove the opposite and be the exception to the rule. But at the moment they are a very complete team.The fact Spain is always able to push out world-class goalkeepers is a point that rarely gets talked about.Tuchel on whether he supported the new international model: No, I am not in favor. After a long tournament, to have another long period is very demanding emotionally and physically for the players. I think players would have loved three short windows. I can hardly think of club football where you have matches and a turnaround like we have now: Saturday, Tuesday and then another Saturday, Tuesday. So only two days twice in between. That sounds too condensed. If you have two and a half weeks, why is this happening twice, with flights and different countries to play in? That feels not 100% right, but it is what it is. It is also the first time for me to do a camp after a big tournament. It can be mixed emotions, and we have not seen each other since the tournament. There is a new competition going on, so there are a lot of different influences in this camp. But the longer it goes on, the more I feel the focus is coming back, and playing against the reigning world champions tomorrow will help.The “international break” is never really a break.Tuchel, responding to discussion of embracing chaos and traditional English values: I think we do this, and we have to do it for a bit longer, especially under pressure and maybe from behind. I think we play very direct, carry the ball a lot, and worship set pieces. There are a lot of things in our game that reflect the English approach to the game: being direct and physical. We try to implement a high press in the opponent’s half. Not many other nations do this, so we try to have a man-to-man approach in the opponent’s half. But there are elements in our game that we can improve. I agree with Anthony: it is about leaning into our strengths, modifying our strengths, and taking from the best teams, especially the best national teams. They have the same amount of time to train it. It becomes an unfair comparison if you look at the top teams in Europe: they train it every day, perhaps for several years. It’s difficult to copy that, but we can take the best, look at how they do it, and try to adapt and improve our model.I think we need to dig into why national teams avoid pressing, the high press.Tuchel on how England could maximise its athletic strengths while reducing weaknesses: Every style of play comes with a weakness. It’s important to acknowledge these strengths; this is what our players produce, where they feel comfortable, and how they want to play. We try to add elements, for example defending in a deep block and defending in a mid-block, because against top nations there are high-pressure moments when other teams push you back. We can improve in that, and we will improve. Defending in a deep block means you cannot collect high-speed runs, so it’s maybe a little bit against what we want to do non-stop. But the players are up for that, and we will add this to our characteristics to make us more complete, more compact, more competitive, and try to close the gap.I doubt they switch to deep block.
