Thomas Tuchel reportedly is to become the new permanent England head coach, replacing Gareth Southgate, who stepped down after his team lost the final of Euro 2024 .
After interim boss Lee Carsley suggested he was not interested in the full-time role, England's football association moved swiftly into talks with interested parties. Negotiations with Tuchel appeared to progress very quickly, and widespread reports on October 15 — after an initial story by The Times — claimed an agreement had been reached for him to take charge.
The German coach looks set to be tasked with overseeing England's attempts to be promoted back to the top tier of the UEFA Nations League before attention switches to securing a place at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, at which the Three Lions will likely be one of the favourites.
England fans will be familiar with Tuchel's time in the Premier League — a remarkable 18-month spell at Chelsea in which he led the Blues from difficult times under Frank Lampard to UEFA Champions League glory, only for things to turn sour before the club's new ownership took action.
So, what exactly went on at Stamford Bridge?
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Why did Chelsea sack Thomas Tuchel?
Tuchel was fired by Chelsea on September 7, 2022, just six games into the 2022/23 Premier League season and only 15 months after he had signed a new contract that ran until the end of 2023/24.
The decision was announced a day after the Blues suffered a shock 1-0 UEFA Champions League group-stage defeat to Dinamo Zagreb, although the writing had been on the wall long before then.
In a statement, the club said Tuchel "will rightly have a place in Chelsea's history" after winning the UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup. Nevertheless, on the 100th day since Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital's consortium had bought the club, the owners said it was "the right time to make this transition".
Chelsea had endured a troubled start to that season, winning only three of their opening six league games. They had also lost the FA Cup final to Liverpool in May that year, which was a bitter pill to swallow, having finished third in the Premier League in 2021/22.
However, there was also a sense that the new people in charge at Chelsea wanted their own appointment to lead the men's first team, Tuchel having been hired in January 2021 when Roman Abramovich was still the owner. According to The Athletic , Boehly called Brighton & Hove Albion CEO Paul Barber personally to open talks over hiring Graham Potter as manager within 30 minutes of the announcement that Tuchel was leaving.
The Athletic's report also stated that Tuchel himself had grown disenchanted with the way the club was operating, not least during an extraordinary summer transfer window in which they set a British record by spending £250 million ($288.5m per exchange rates at the time) on a plethora of new players.
Tuchel, it was reported, felt undermined by the fact that many of the signings were not his preferred targets; he was also unhappy that previous club officials with whom he worked well, such as technical advisor Petr Cech, had been let go.
In May 2024, Tuchel reflected fondly on his time at Chelsea, telling TNT Sports: "It is no secret that I loved it at Chelsea, I loved it in England and I loved it in the Premier League for sure. It was a very, very special time, and I remember it very well."
Was Thomas Tuchel fired by Bayern Munich and PSG?
Tuchel went to Bayern Munich after his departure from Chelsea, replacing Julian Nagelsmann in March 2023. He lasted only one season at the club: the German giants, who lost out to Xabi Alonso's remarkable Bayer Leverkusen side in the Bundesliga title race, announced in February 2024 that there was a mutual agreement for Tuchel to leave at the end of the campaign.
While Tuchel was not fired per se, Bayern had become eager to move on from him, despite a fan petition calling for Tuchel to stay amassing more than 20,000 signatures. There was reported disharmony among some of the players and criticism from local media over his tactical decisions, while it seemed his relationship with the club's executives had deteriorated.
Tuchel himself said in February 2024: "I don't think I am the only problem but I accept my responsibility. I am not satisfied with the way we play and have been unhappy for quite some time.
"Now we have a new situation. The situation has been solved and communicated, but I don't think I am the only problem."
There was a similar story at Borussia Dortmund and Paris Saint-Germain.
Tuchel left BVB in 2017 after his working relationship with the club hierarchy had deteriorated to such an extent that CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke publicly described him as a "difficult person".
At PSG, he won two Ligue 1 titles — one of which came as part of a quadruple of domestic trophies in 2019/20 — and led the club to their first, and only, Champions League final in that truncated season, where they lost 1-0 to Bayern Munich. Again, he had a fractious relationship with his superiors; after telling German TV channel Sport1 that he felt more like a politician than a coach at the Qatari-backed club, sporting director Leonardo accused him of damaging PSG's reputation.
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