The narrative about the difference between Gareth Southgate and Thomas Tuchel is not that simple | Cath Bishop

W e’ve completed the Southgate leadership lessons and now we find ourselves at the beginning of the Tuchelosophy course. We can already see some of the key modules we’ll be studying over the next few weeks. But it’s important we’re ready to learn with open minds and ditch some of the old tropes. The dominant simplistic narrative that accompanied the shift from Gareth Southgate to Thomas Tuchel was that the former wasn’t ruthless enough and therefore the latter will be more ruthless. There are already assumptions and interpretations of Tuchel’s actions and words being made through that lens which need challenging. Gary Neville asserted in the second half of England’s first match against Croatia that Tuchel had obviously “blasted them” and given them “an absolute rocket” at half-time, no doubt remembering his own experiences. There was much discussion anticipating what might get said in the Ghana game half-time talk. Yet Tuchel explained afterwards that in the first game he gave the players some calm time and then in those few short critical moments, chose to remind them explicitly: “Even if we lost, it will not change my perception of you from the last 17 days, but let’s do it our way.” How many coaches would feel comfortable, confident and understand why mentioning losing at half-time is a really smart thing to do? It contradicts the outdated but persistent mythology that this might be a moment to be aggressive, cry for victory and deploy some winning rhetoric. …