Thomas Tuchel: How new England manager has gone from barman to Three Lions

English football is about to enter a new era. German coach Thomas Tuchel will become only the third non-British manager to lead the England national team, following Sven-Göran Eriksson and Fabio Capello. He faces the significant responsibility of leading England to a successful showing at the 2026 World Cup.

Previously, under Gareth Southgate, the "Three Lions" reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup and lost in the finals of the 2021 and 2024 European Championships. For the 51-year-old Tuchel, his task is clear, but also extremely difficult – to lead the team to progress and ultimately win the 2026 World Cup. He hopes to hit the ground running, with England first hosting Albania at Wembley, followed by welcoming Latvia on Monday.

So, what will the coach, who led Chelsea to the Champions League title in 2021 and has also managed Borussia Dortmund, Paris Saint-Germain, and Bayern Munich, bring to the England team? BBC Sport interviewed people familiar with Tuchel to learn more.

Tuchel, who is 1.93 meters tall, was a defender during his playing career. He initially played for German second division side Stuttgarter Kickers before spending three years with third division side Ulm, until a serious knee injury ended his playing career in 1998 at the age of just 25. His coach at Ulm was Ralf Rangnick, who has managed Schalke 04, RB Leipzig, Manchester United, and is now the coach of the Austrian national team. Rangnick said: "He was always interested in the reasons why we did certain things. After a few weeks, you could see which players had the potential to become coaches – he was always asking questions."

In 2000, a successful coaching career seemed a long way off for Tuchel, who was working in a bar, serving beer and collecting glasses. Rangnick added: "When I became the coach of Stuttgart, I found out that he was working in a bar to make a living, I couldn't believe it. I called him and said, 'Why don't you come and work as a youth team coach for us?' That's how his coaching career started. It was clear that he shouldn't be working in a bar, he was better off on the pitch with the team."

Tuchel worked with Stuttgart's U15 team and a few years later led the U19 team to a league title. His first head coach position was with Augsburg II in 2007, and two years later he took charge of Bundesliga side Mainz, where Jürgen Klopp had also been the coach. Rangnick was not surprised that Tuchel was able to coach in the top league, adding: "Thomas is a very smart and intelligent person. He studied sports in Stuttgart. It was clear that he had many of the qualities needed to be a coach."

Tuchel also learns from and emulates those around him. During his five years at Mainz, he led the team to European competition twice, and in the 2010-11 season, he led them to fifth place, their best-ever Bundesliga finish. Former Germany international Thomas Hitzlsperger said: "Tuchel has been influenced by many head coaches and coaches – it was clear that he was always eager to learn, to stay open-minded and curious. Ralf Rangnick is one of the people who influenced him – what do you do when you don't have the ball, how do you win the ball back, and then how do you create chances and score goals? Tuchel borrowed some of those elements, but another element is focusing on how you handle the ball. In this regard, Tuchel is very close to Pep Guardiola in terms of football thinking and how to create opportunities from possession. Pep is more like the coach he admires, and they established a connection and relationship when they were together in the Bundesliga (Guardiola coached Bayern Munich). They are still friends and talk often."

In 2015, Tuchel began a new challenge, replacing Klopp, who was about to move to Liverpool, as the coach of Borussia Dortmund. During Klopp's seven years at Dortmund, he had won the Bundesliga title twice and reached the Champions League final, and Tuchel had to win the recognition of the new players, but not everyone was happy. Former Dortmund midfielder Ilkay Gündoğan recalled: "When it was announced that he would be the new coach, I didn't really have high expectations. I was even thinking about maybe leaving the club. I had a phone call with him, he introduced himself to me while he was on vacation during the summer break, and it was actually a very good phone call. He tried to explain a few things, how he wanted us to play, how he wanted us to train, and everything he said was proven that season."

Gündoğan joined Manchester City after Dortmund finished second in the Bundesliga at the end of the 2015-16 season, while Tuchel won the first major trophy of his career, beating Eintracht Frankfurt 2-1 in the German Cup final in May 2017, which proved to be his last game in charge of the club. However, former Germany international Gündoğan was completely won over by Tuchel during their only season together. He added: "I can only say positive things about his time at Dortmund. He was tactically very good, and very honest and direct. Personally, I got along very well with him."

Hitzlsperger believes that Tuchel's interpersonal skills will be key to his success in England, adding: "The players who have worked with Tuchel in the past speak very positively about him, and the way he conveys his ideas to them. I don't think it will have any impact that he is German. Most English players have worked under foreign coaches, or have done so in the past. He is a top coach, so they will accept his ideas, and they are already used to most of them, so it should be a smooth transition." Rangnick added: "He is someone who likes to improve other people's abilities. As a head coach, you need to have analytical skills and intelligence. He is curious, interesting, and has a sense of humor. A very special sense of humor, if you understand that humor, he will be very funny."

Apart from his nearly five-year spell at Mainz, all of Tuchel's jobs have followed a similar pattern – success, but not staying in the same position for long. After Dortmund, he won the French league title twice and led Paris Saint-Germain to the Champions League final in two and a half years. Next was Chelsea, where he took over in January 2021 and won the Champions League just four months later, beating Guardiola and Gündoğan's Manchester City 1-0 in the final. However, despite also winning the European Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup, he was sacked in September 2022.

Before England, Bayern Munich was his last club, where he took over in March 2023 and immediately won the Bundesliga title within months, but left after the end of the next season – despite England captain Harry Kane scoring goals for fun, it was a season without any silverware. Mainz's long-term executive and sporting director Christian Heidel said in 2021: "Thomas is not an easy person to get along with, or not an easy person to deal with, but all good coaches are complex. Complex means they are also tough. They make demands on the people around them, their players, from morning to night, and therefore, they are incredible coaches."

Former Augsburg youth coach Heiner Schuhmann described Tuchel as "an outstanding, passionate player on the pitch who gave everything," but he believes that "he was very strict and demanding, which was not appreciated by some players." Hitzlsperger also believes that Tuchel may "annoy people" when dealing with club officials, and he must try to avoid this happening with the English Football Association. The former Aston Villa and Stuttgart midfielder said: "It is important that Tuchel maintains a good relationship with the FA, those who brought him in, and he must handle the media and the public well. What happened at Bayern and Dortmund must not happen, where he fell out with his bosses. I am optimistic that there will not be too many disagreements, because in his previous clubs, it was usually about transfer issues, and as a national team coach, this is not an issue. The situation with the media and fans is different. The advantage he has is that he has worked at Chelsea before, so he knows what English fans are like."

Tuchel began coaching the England team on January 1 and has been frequently seen at Premier League matches. He has already shown that he will work his own way, surprisingly recalling 34-year-old Ajax midfielder Jordan Henderson, as well as calling up 32-year-old Newcastle defender Dan Burn and 18-year-old Arsenal left-back Myles Lewis-Skelly into the national team for the first time. Former England captain Alan Shearer believes that Tuchel wants to get the best out of the team immediately, saying: "We've been down this road so many times, an English coach comes in with hope, believing that in three or four years we might do it. This coach has been brought in for now, for the next 18 months, to win the World Cup. That's his job. If he doesn't win the World Cup, he won't be here."

Hitzlsperger believes that Tuchel can be successful, and if England wins games, his nationality will soon be overlooked. He added: "His experience in club management will help him coach the England team. For example, he had to deal with some of the most famous players in the world at Paris Saint-Germain and was expected to win everything in French and European competitions. Hopefully the players will be willing to play for their country because they think it's fun, they play exciting football, and they enjoy the way they play. He will get people excited, get them off their seats, thinking 'This is great, this is the football we want to see.'"

The 2026 World Cup will be held in Canada, the United States, and Mexico, and Tuchel's goal is to become only the second coach after Sir Alf Ramsey in 1966 to lead England to World Cup glory. Hitzlsperger said: "I would never say, 'He will win the World Cup,' but he has one of the best squads in the world, along with Spain, France, Argentina, and Brazil. Tuchel may want to play against Germany at some point. Can you imagine? Beating Germany at the World Cup – that would be very sweet for him, and there probably wouldn't be a bigger achievement than that. If he can beat them, that would be one of the biggest achievements, second only to winning the World Cup, and beating Germany on the way to the World Cup would be fantastic for him."