Just five months after Thomas Tuchel was sacked by Paris Saint-Germain, he successfully led Chelsea to the Champions League trophy. The German coach gave the Blues a second UCL trophy, as well as atone for last season’s final defeat when he was beaten by Hansi Flick’s Bayern Munich. The victory at Porto was very special for Tuchel. His family came when Kai Havetz and friends beat Manchester City. In addition, he managed to beat a colleague and rival who was very influential in his coaching career, Josep Guardiola.
When dealing with Mainz 05 and Borussia Dortmund, his team was too inferior to Pep’s Bayern. Now, in the biggest party of his career, Tuchel came out victorious. Since taking charge of Chelsea in January 2021, he has always won in three matches against Guardiola’s Man City. Long before managing Chelsea, Tuchel was widely recognized as a smart and innovative coach. The success of the Champions League confirms his status as one of the brightest minds in world football today.
Since becoming a player, Tuchel has demonstrated superior tactical acumen. He played for the Stuttgarter Kickers and SSV Ulm until he was forced to retire early due to a serious injury in 1998. He briefly studied business administration and became a waiter to prepare for life outside of football. However, he was obsessed with this game and then chose to plunge into a coaching career. The famous German coach, Ralf Rangnick hired him in the youth team of VfB Stuttgart. Tuchel guided die Schwaben’s Under-19 team to champion the junior Bundesliga competition. However, his fierce personality made Stuttgart not renew the coach’s contract.
Tuchel later became the coach of FC Augsburg II. Prior to joining, he demanded the club to help fund him for a UEFA Pro-level license. He obtained the license after going through a six and a half month course at the Hennes Weisweiler Academy. Erich Roumoeller, the former head of training at die Akademie, remembers Tuchel as a quiet student. Although he did not stand out in class, he was a diligent and intelligent learner. “He understands coaching, sports medicine, physiology, and psychology. He was a very good student from the start,” Roumoeller told The Guardian.
Tuchel’s career became increasingly successful when he handled the Mainz 05 youth team. He brought the Mainz youth team to the U-19 Bundesliga championship, something that Nullfuenfer has never achieved. In the final, they beat Borussia Dortmund, which was reinforced by Mario Goetze. “I saw [Mainz vs Dortmund U-19] with Juergen [Klopp],” said Mainz sporting director Christian Heidel. “After the match, Juergen said: ‘There were 10 better players at Dortmund, but they lost to one team that was better’,” he continued.
Tuchel’s coaching talent impressed Mainz directors. Only a year after being appointed to handle the youth team, he was promoted to first team coach, replacing Juergen Klopp who left the club. This bold decision paid off sweetly for Mainz. Tuchel not only brought the club to safety in the Bundesliga. Die Nullfuenfer even had a chance to finish in fifth place in 2010/11.
Not only strong in tactical terms, Tuchel is also capable of developing the capacity of the players. He developed various training methods so that his squad could compete at the top. The key to Tuchel’s training is getting players to shape behavior. He doesn’t want to just give instructions on how to play he wants.
To shape the desired behavior, Tuchel needs to make sure his players do something repetitively and automatically. He had the defenders train with a tennis ball in hand to prevent them from pulling on the opponent’s jersion and thus committing a foul. He made the players compete with small balls to practice control and tackle accuracy. To encourage players to make diagonal moves, he had them practice on a diamond or hexagonal court.
“It is the form of the field, we create the conditions for the players, we force them to be creative through the conditions from outside,” said Tuchel. In addition, he is also open to considering input from various parties. While working with Mainz, he invited two writers from the tactical analysis blog Spielverlagerung, Rene Maric and Martin Rafelt. He asked the two analysts to contribute ideas to improve Mainz’s game.
“They [Mainz] asked about my article about Swansea. It was Swansea’s first season in the Premier League and they beat Man City. This article talks about winning as the inferior team. Mainz at that time was still very focused on the counter-attack. For them, it is interesting that there are teams that are inferior but still able to do something with ball possession. Thomas is curious and wants to find something he doesn’t understand,” said Rafelt.
Coaching intelligence combined by Tuchel with his compassion to understand the players. While working with Chelsea, he tried to understand his players one by one and talk to them. The players who did not contribute much in the Frank Lampard era also tried to convince Tuchel and were given the opportunity.
“From the first minute, the players felt a great connection with him [Tuchel]. From the first meeting and the first match, it felt like he had been here for two years. We understood each other from the first day he arrived,” said Mateo Kovacic.
For Tuchel, and Chelsea, Champions League triumph is just the beginning. Furthermore, the target is clearly to break the duopoly of Manchester City and Liverpool in the Premier League.
ASL
