A year to go until the World Cup, Thomas Tuchel faces the reality of international football | OneFootball

It was in a sunny Barcelona, on the eve of a forgiving World Cup qualifier against Andorra, that Thomas Tuchel felt relaxed enough to publicly relay a view he has repeatedly expressed in private. He has found elite football tactics become increasingly homogenous, with so many managers methodically developing play from the full-backs.

“A lot of the top teams in the Premier League play in a certain style, and teams build in a 3-2 formation from a 4-1,” Tuchel explained. “There are exceptions with Liverpool and Newcastle [United].”

One of the questions he is currently tackling is whether that will condition how England play in the World Cup, or whether he can really do something distinctive; something - as he puts it - more English.

“Pace, power and strength… strong aggressive defenders with big personalities, box-to-box midfielders.”

Tuchel insists there are numerous factors that could affect this, from new ideas within clubs to the heat of the 2026 World Cup across North America. He also admits that it’s just impossible to expect hard conclusions now.

“These are some questions I don’t have all the answers to, and I don’t have to right now, because we still have one year to go. But we are on it.”

Tuchel couldn’t help but stress the huge contrast in volume of coaching time between the international game and the club game. Given that he previously criticised the June break, and how disruptive it was for players, you got the sense on Friday afternoon that he now welcomes this time with the squad.

“I am now half a year the England manager but I have had eight training sessions. Eight training sessions is not normally a whole week with a club in pre-season, or it is the first week. But after half a year [of training with a club] you can see that some exercises go almost blindfolded - players would know what to do. And here we are, after eight training sessions and half a year has gone.”

With one year to go until the World Cup, Thomas Tuchel still has questions on how to bring the best out of his England squad (The FA via Getty Images)

Tuchel says that he will consequently use some matches this year for specific approaches, rather than imposing a holistic ideology. Such pragmatism may be important.

The “headline approach”, as he puts it, is pretty obvious for Andorra.

“We will try something: how to attack the opponents’ box against a deep block, because this is what we expect, a very deep 5-4-1, and the main targets will be how do we arrive behind the backline; how do we arrive in the box; how often to we arrive there; how good do we find the rhythm to arrive in the opponents’ box and how good is our reaction to ball losses to play counter-pressing.

“So, in the moment, I don’t get lost in thinking about formations. It’s more about behaviour and giving headlines for certain matches. The match will be different I guess from the match against Senegal. This is good because we have different questions and need to find different answers.

“I think two or three training sessions are enough to have an effect on that, and then we see if we get a good response from them. And, from there, we go step by step and try to implement certain behaviours that we can rely on no matter what formation we might be playing.”

Thomas Tuchel (right) and England captain Harry Kane prepare for the World Cup qualifier against Andorra (Bradley Collyer/PA Wire)

Far from wanting to criticise Premier League sides for their approach, however, Tuchel believes their tactics can help him amid such limited time.

“We need to learn. We need to learn on the video and we need to learn from the players what they do in club football. I think some of the questions will be answered by the club coaches, like where is the best position for a player, where does a player feel confident. We have a picture of that and we try to make the messages as easy as possible, to not overload the players with different styles of playing and too many informations. But of course it’s still in the process.

“In the end we have so many players from different clubs we need to narrow the idea down and not overload with too many ideas and try to be consistent to form an idea of how we want to be successful and knowing the World Cup is not played in England it is played in the United States, Canada and Mexico.”

England have been preparing for the conditions that the World Cup will be played in next year (The FA via Getty Images)

Mention of location raises another variable. A classically intense Premier League style may not suit the conditions.

This is something that has naturally come to obsess Tuchel during his time in the job, given it could be the difference between success and failure. Figures close to Fabio Capello’s time still lament how one of the Italian’s biggest mistakes was getting conditioning for South Africa 2010 wrong. This doesn’t seem likely with Tuchel.

“The majority of our players play in the toughest league in the world and they are used to a kind of rhythm that is very unique. The tournaments are normally played after a long season and it is not maybe an advantage for us but it is just a fact. It is maybe not a coincidence that players felt the most comfortable in the Qatar World Cup where they were in the middle of the season and suddenly the demands of the Premier League became an advantage because they were in the middle of it and they felt a certain capacity where they had an advantage over other players. But a lot of the other players play in the Premier League because it is very international at the same time.

Tuchel hopes to instill an 'English' style of play on his team but rues the lack of training time in international football (The FA via Getty Images)

“It can be that at some point we need to adjust our style of play when it comes to tournament football, when it comes to knockout football. Everyone wants to win, everyone wants to win in style. Can you really play the same game in 40-degree heat and humidity that you play in 20-degree in an evening match?

“But the basic idea is that we know where we are playing. We play in heat and humidity, which can make you feel uncomfortable, and the level of discomfort that you feel is very individual.

“So, each player will react differently to the heat. Each player will have a different feeling about it, how comfortable it is and then you have the objective data that can help.

“Basically just like for us to gather information about the players and help them prepare better for it, recover faster, and provide them with the right amount of supplements during a match. That's basically the rough idea.”

Tuchel is still adapting to international football but has clear goals in mind to hone his team ahead of the World Cup (Bradley Collyer/PA Wire)

On the subject of potential fatigue, Tuchel did deny that clubs in the Club World Cup asked him to not use their players more than once in this break.

“No coach has called me… it can happen that some players start twice for us but, like I said, we also have an interest to see a lot of players in these two matches so I think we will not in the end upset anyone.”

Tuchel did lament that Liam Delap’s move to Chelsea will see him feature in the Club World Cup, rather than the under-21s.

“It would have been nice for him and for the FA for him to play a big tournament. But that’s nowadays football. There are some rules and it’s club first.

“But for him personally, the next big challenge – and we will monitor him closely – will be to see if he can impose himself on the Chelsea squad, grab his place and make himself available for us.”