British soccer managers expressed disappointment and a sense of acceptance on Thursday after German coach Thomas Tuchel was chosen to lead England instead of a homegrown coach.
Mark Bullingham, the chief executive of the Football Association, mentioned that some English managers were interviewed for the position from a list of about 10 candidates, but Tuchel was seen as the best option for helping England win a major title for the first time since the 1966 World Cup.
Tuchel, who has previously managed Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain, and Bayern Munich, is the third foreign coach to take charge of England’s men’s team this century, following Sweden’s Sven-Goran Eriksson and Italy’s Fabio Capello.
Russell Martin, one of six managers from Britain and Ireland currently coaching in the Premier League, stated that there are “loads of English coaches really capable of doing the job as well.”
“Maybe English managers aren’t given enough credit,” said the Southampton manager, “or maybe they are deemed not good enough by the most important people.”
Martin, who rose to the Premier League after promoting Southampton last season, questioned the effectiveness of the much-talked-about coaching pathway at England’s national training center at St. George’s Park.
“It’s going to cause a lot of interesting discussion and conversation, especially at the FA, because we have a well-renowned coaching education system that people come from far and wide to do, and then we can’t appoint someone from that,” said Martin, an England-born former Scotland international.
Sean Dyche, the English manager of Everton, noted that he was not interviewed by the FA and said it was “a reality of the modern game” that homegrown coaches were overlooked for the job.
Leicester manager Steve Cooper, a Welshman who led England to the Under-17 World Cup title in 2017, expressed hope that British coaches will be recognized among the best in the world “over the course of time.”
