Pep Guardiola looming over England manager search to make Thomas Tuchel more attractive - Stuart Rayner
The England football team got punched in the face – repeatedly – by Greece on Thursday, and the masterplan, like the gumshield, has gone flying, it seems.
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Hide AdAfter the last international break it was starting to feel inevitable interim coach Lee Carsley would at least see out this season. After this one, it seems certain he will not.
Carsley's apparent confusion about whether he wants the permanent job seems to mirror his bosses’ – and it is all Pep Guardiola's fault.
Because the Manchester City manager is the best, and the Football Association are hoping they can day put him in charge of England. But for all the glamour of the Three Lions job, for all the money they can throw at it, Guardiola is not someone they can bank on in this regard.
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Hide AdOne bad result was all it took to trash the long-term plan but the long-term dream is hard to give up, tempting the FA into quick fixes.
Thomas Tuchel, who they have reportedly entered advanced talks with, is a brilliant coach too. In the last nine years the German has managed four of Europe’s biggest clubs.
That is not a reassuring statistic, but might suit the FA even if the timing – four games into Carsley's planned six, days after Greece – stinks of panic, not planning.
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Hide AdA couple of successful years before he falls out with everyone and goes could buy time for Guardiola to end his time at Manchester City – his contract expires in June but there has been talk this week of an extra year – have a year off, and be England's recharged manager for 2028’s home European Championship.
If it works, beautiful, but there are a lot of ifs.
Even to a Catalan like Guardiola, managing England is attractive. But more attractive than Brazil if that job comes up at the same time?
Guardiola has never been an easy man to second-guess, as Manchester City may be finding out now.
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Hide AdBut the best-laid plans seldom come to fruition. If they did, David Platt and Stuart Pearce would have managed England. Steve McClaren did, but it did not work out. Gareth Southgate almost cracked it.
The pretentious nonsense about "England DNA" 10 years ago was supposed to be about St George's Park churning out innovative coaches and technically gifted players.
It has excelled at the latter but where are the coaches? If not Carsley, who? There are only four English managers in the Premier League, three in the bottom five. Welshman Steve Cooper, the St George's graduate, cannot compete with Tuchel's CV.
There are none at major clubs abroad.
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Hide AdPremier League clubs, like the English public, are reluctant to throw their confidence behind managers who have only shone down the leagues, or in youth football.
If England were truly committed to their “DNA”, Carsley, like Southgate, would have got the job permanently from the off but once again, idealism is taking a punch in the face from reality.
Perhaps the reality is England just need to get the monkey off their back and win a first major trophy since 1966 before getting too wrapped up in styles, nationalities and pathways. Southgate, the patriotic Englishman and St George's product, nearly managed that.
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Hide AdThe combustible Tuchel has skills which could pull it off. He will upset people, he is not English, and his appointment will be a bad advert for St George's. People will have to decide if it is a trade-off they can swallow.
But basing concrete long-term plans on wooing the world's best coach seems a stretch too far, sadly.
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