How Thomas Tuchel plans to turn England headache into World Cup advantage | OneFootball

If managing England has given Thomas Tuchel many a headache, now he can add a pain in his guts. The impossible job, as many of his predecessors can confirm, is not good for your health. In the German’s case, the discomfort stems from the decisions he has to make. And if Tuchel is sufficiently bold in his choices that he was willing to omit Jude Bellingham from his squad in October and then bench him against Serbia on his November recall, a man with the courage of his convictions sees the difficulties of possessing a surfeit of players.

“I just hate this talk to give Alex Scott the message ‘you are not in the squad’,” said Tuchel. “I don’t like it, I have stomach pain.” It is why he has taken to naming smaller squads, so he is only dispensing bad news to one or two players per game, not four or five.

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Phil Foden set an example with his impact off the bench in the 2-0 win over Serbia (The FA via Getty)

Yet England’s strength in depth will become an advantage in the World Cup; perhaps even more so in a tournament where the winners will play eight games, with the possibility of extreme heat, after seasons have become still more crammed by the expansion of the Champions League and when some of his players were denied a proper summer break last year by the Club World Cup.

Tuchel’s bench strength proved handy against Serbia, the late second goal coming from a combination of three replacements, in Bellingham, Phil Foden and the scorer Eberechi Eze. England, he thinks, cannot win a World Cup without goals from substitutes. “One hundred per cent,” he concurred. “We need a good bench. We play in 40 degrees, and we will play after a long, long season. We are maybe the nation that suffers the most in international football from long seasons. We need to be ready to do substitutions until hopefully the late stages of the World Cup.”

And, for some, that will require a shift in status, to accept a bit-part role. Some superstars may have to accept their place in the pecking order. Tuchel knows he has good players. He also wants good tourists. Starters for elite clubs may be rebranded as substitutes for their country. In that respect, Foden set the right example on Thursday: adapting to play as a false nine, sparkling in his cameo. Tuchel does not expect others to be delighted to miss out on his starting 11.

“They will never be happy and they don’t have to be happy,” he said. “No one is used to sitting on the bench, this is the nature of a strong national team. They come because they are regularly picked; they come because they are captains and key players in their team.” But if they can’t all fit in Tuchel’s 11, they have to be willing to be a deputy. “Once we go to a tournament, I think clarity in the role is very important,” he added. “The better player can also think about it and be honest, ‘can I accept this, is it good for me, can I make the most of this for the team?’

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Bellingham was used from the bench in the 2-0 win over Serbia (The FA via Getty)

“You can be angry at the coach, you can be angry at the situation, but if you see the nations that win and the clubs that win the Champions League, then the bench is on their feet. For the last eight, 10 minutes, there is no one sat there thinking, ‘I should be on the field, I should be on the field, why am I not there?’

“They are just there. I experienced this once in the amazing run with Chelsea and it was non-stop; everyone was pushing and fighting from the bench, even if they were not picked. And they were ready. This makes in the end the difference and I strongly, strongly believe we should arrive with a team like that.”

And yet the kind of spirit Tuchel was talking about has been displayed by England: in their last tournament, too. It was the substitute Trent Alexander-Arnold who scored the decisive penalty in the Euro 2024 quarter-final shootout against Switzerland, the substitute Ollie Watkins who got the injury-time winner in the semi-final against the Netherlands, the substitute Cole Palmer who equalised in the final against Spain. Gareth Southgate, criticised for an inability to change games with his substitutions earlier in his reign, mastered the art at the end.

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Tuchel cannot afford egos for his World Cup plan to work (The FA via Getty)

Now, none of Alexander-Arnold, Watkins or the injured Palmer is in the squad – though there could be hope for the latter pair. As well as Foden did, Harry Kane is the only specialist striker in the current group, while if Palmer is one of too many No 10s for Tuchel to pick all, he can also operate on the right.

They give the manager options, but put the onus on him to choose correctly, to pick the right five in each match. There are unlikely to be more. “I think we will not get another number so quickly out of Fifa,” Tuchel smiled. “We have to adapt with five, and think outside the box and maybe worship even the extra slot we have at half time.”

England won the last World Cup that did not feature substitutes. If they win the next one, it could be because of the church of the half-time sub.