Thomas Tuchel prizes connections so much that the very first time he faced Bayern Munich, when in his first senior job as manager of Mainz, he forwent his usual tactical team talk and simply played his players a famous Al Pacino speech from Any Given Sunday. In it, Pacino, who plays an American Football coach, tells his team: “In any fight, it’s the guy who’s willing to die who’s going to win that inch. You’ve got to look at the guy next to you, look into his eyes. Now, I think you’re going to see a guy who will go that inch with you.”
Tuchel has not named his first England squad yet but is already putting relationships at the centre of his strategy to win the World Cup. Mark Bullingham, the FA chief executive, revealed Tuchel has identified a longlist of 55 players who are contenders for his England team — and has been speaking to as many of them as possible in a bid to forge bonds.
Many of Tuchel’s conversations with players have been by telephone, with Arsenal’s Ben White — who had ruled himself out of contention under Gareth Southgate and Lee Carsley — among those getting calls. “Gareth was very, very connected and very smart culturally. I think Thomas is the same and he has realised early on that you don’t build those connections in the six days you get together, so he has put a lot of effort into [calling players],” Bullingham said.
“I think he’s got 55 on this longlist and makes sure that he’s got a strong connection with them, that they know that he has seen them. It’s not only the players in England, it’s players playing abroad as well, and I think that will only stand him in good stead in the long run.”
Mainz beat Bayern for the first time in their 104-year history after watching the Pacino speech.
Tottenham Hotspur’s James Maddison has already spoken about being buoyed by Tuchel’s attempts to forge connections and, having not played for England since the warm-up games for Euro 2024, is among the players hoping for a recall when Tuchel names his first England squad next Friday for World Cup qualifiers against Latvia and Albania. The breadth of Tuchel’s net could bring uncapped starlets like Arsenal’s Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri into contention as well as players who have not represented their country for some time, such as Crystal Palace’s Tyrick Mitchell and Everton’s James Tarkowski.
Bullingham, speaking at Wembley, enthused about his early impressions of Tuchel — who formally began work as England head coach on January 1. In a riposte to criticism of Tuchel after Times Sport revealed he missed three Premier League weekends in his first six weeks in the job, having been granted flexibility to make regular trips to Germany to see his family, Bullingham said Tuchel had made a “brilliant” start.
“He’s made a really strong impact,” he said. “He’s really hit the ground running. I think you’ve seen him at a number of games. He’s also integrated a small number of his support team he brought with him into St George’s Park [SGP]. He’s been up there a lot and spent a lot of time with people.
“He’s living in London and based up at SGP, and we’re delighted with him.”
Tuchel’s early work has included looking into the challenges in terms of logistics, climate and altitude England might face when playing at the 2026 World Cup, which will be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico, and completing a detailed handover with Carsley — England’s interim manager for last autumn’s Nations League games.
“[Tuchel] is an incredibly charismatic and energetic individual, so I expected the positive impact,” he said. “I know he’s looking at some tweaks and changes for how he runs the camp, some creative ideas and I’m just really pleased with how he’s approached it.”
Bullingham outlined the FA’s “big goals” between now and 2028, which include growing the women’s game further and boosting community clubs, delivering 12,000 quality grass pitches and increasing the number of ethnically diverse Uefa-qualified coaches by 4,000. The biggest goal is following England’s women’s triumph at Euro 2022 by winning another major tournament, either with the men’s or women’s team.
On Tuchel’s 2026 World Cup bid Bullingham said: “The first [item] I put up was winning trophies. There’s probably seven or eight countries that are going into next year with the ambition to win. We’re no different. [The 2026 World Cup] is really important to us.”
Confirming England is to make a combined bid with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to host the 2035 Women’s World Cup, Bullingham said: “We felt it would be a really good thing for the game in this country and we felt we could do a really good job.” Other FA plans include changing its coach education structure, to separate the grassroots and the elite game and provide more targeted support for English coaches at the top end. “It feels at the moment in order to be a Premier League coach, if you’re English, you almost need to get a team promoted,” Bullingham said.
He nevertheless suggested he was open to Tuchel, a German, extending his England tenure beyond the 18 months he was initially hired for. Tuchel is contracted until the end of the 2026 World Cup, and Bullingham said: “I think he always said, ‘I might be here for ten years but I’ll only ever sign up in two-year cycles,’ effectively. And the reason is he just wants his sole focus to be on the next tournament and be really single-minded with the players on that, but it’s very early to judge, but I can say he’s made a brilliant impact already so we’re very happy with him.”
Bullingham confirmed that Mason Greenwood has completed his switch of international allegiance to Jamaica, shutting the door once and for all on his England career.
Greenwood made one appearance for England in September 2000 and is thriving at Marseille, whom he joined after Manchester United, where he was suspended in January 2022 after being arrested and later charged by Greater Manchester Police on suspicion of rape and assault of a woman. He denied all the charges against him and they were all dropped in February 2024, but his contract at United was ended by mutual agreement after a six-month internal investigation by the club.
Bullingham denied suggestions Greenwood asked to switch after being told by the FA that he would never play for England again.
“I don’t think there was ever a request or anything like that. It just wasn’t one we got to, so it’s a personal decision by him,” Bullingham said. “My understanding . . . is he’s asked to switch. That’s happened formally, so he wouldn’t be able [to play for England in future] because you can only switch once.”
FA chief backs bodycams for Premier League referees
Mark Bullingham would like to see body-worn cameras introduced to help elite referees deal with abuse at the top end of the game.
The FA is already trialling referee bodycams in selected grassroots leagues — becoming the first national association to try the technology — and found them successful in cutting down incidents. Bullingham believes they would work in top competitions like the Premier League too.
“In the professional game, [the debate about] bodycams is whether it’s something that would be good for the broadcaster,” the FA chief executive said. “There are different views on that. I personally think it’s good and something which should be trialled and potentially allowed. Initially it might be trialled without audio and then long-term trialled with audio.”
This week the Liverpool head coach Arne Slot was given a two-game ban and fined £70,000 after confronting referee Michael Oliver at the end of last month’s Merseyside derby. Oliver alleged that Slot told him: “If we don’t win the league I’ll f***ing blame you.”
Slot denied swearing at Oliver in that instance, although did not dispute calling him “a f***ing disgrace”, but an FA commission backed the referee in imposing its sanction.
Bodycams are seen as a deterrent to players and coaches abusing referees and since the start of the 2023-24 season the FA has trialled them for referees in grassroots leagues in eight areas, including London, Essex, Liverpool, Nottingham and West Riding, reporting a drop in abusive incidents.
“The grassroots level is about protecting the referee and they have had a really, really positive impact,” Bullingham said.
“The one challenge we’ve got is the cost of the units is over £250. What we’re speaking with Fifa about is whether we can get more countries to adopt a trial and even get Fifa behind it, because economies of scale will drive technology providers to come up with a cheaper solution.”
“There are lots of creative solutions being looked at. We’ve seen referees being more confident and a huge decrease in the number of issues in the leagues where there’s bodycams.”
