Tuchel on England’s football culture: “I don’t know if I’ll have time to teach them to keep the ball”

Thomas Tuchel admits it may prove too difficult for his England side to play the refined possession-based game favored by other elite international teams.

The England manager faced the media on Friday for the first time since his team’s World Cup semifinal defeat to Argentina, and was confronted with criticism over the squad’s failure to control matches during this summer’s tournament in the United States and Mexico.

Tuchel made a striking remark, saying that almost every England fan he had met since the tournament had expressed a positive attitude.

“I know that 99.9 percent of fans don’t talk about substitutions, tactical changes or tactical details. They talk about where they watched the game against Mexico and about the energy shown in the second half of the Croatia game. They talk about the huge tension during our game against Congo and about the places where they celebrated. That’s the reaction I get. That’s what we’ve created and that’s how it should be,” Tuchel said.

The harsher reality is that, despite being just ten minutes away from the final, England’s play in the matches against Argentina, Norway and the Democratic Republic of Congo was not always impressive.

And after declaring on the day of his unveiling two years ago that he wanted his team to play fast, intense football like in the Premier League, on Friday he admitted it is difficult to maintain that style throughout a long summer tournament. “It’s not economical,” the German said.

Yet, ahead of the Nations League match against world champions Spain, Tuchel admitted he thinks the alternative may still be too difficult to implement. “I’m racking my brains over this, because even if a team controls the game in the Premier League, how many English players are in those teams?” Tuchel said.

“Is it in our DNA? Do we really value controlling the game? Is it something that makes us feel good during a match? Is it something that comes naturally to us? Do we even understand that if we control midfield, everything is fine? It all depends on how English fans enjoy a game. I don’t think an English fan goes to a Premier League match and wants to see a controlled game and a 1-0 win in the final minutes. I think that, at heart, English players as well as spectators want to play aggressively and offensively,” Tuchel said. A.V.