Month: October 2024

If your best isn’t good enough … then so be it

News Briefing

“The FA’s decision to appoint Thomas Tuchel as the new England manager is so, so sad. … The manager of a national team, any national team, should be from the same country as his players. It should be compulsory, one of the rules of the game, a point that isn’t even up for discussion. … This should be about one country’s best taking on another country’s best. If that best isn’t good enough, then so be it. Do something about the lack of resources at your disposal to ensure you do have the best players and coaches if you want to win something.”

Lack of viable English managers

World News

The FA also suffers because the country’s main football competition is not really an English league but a global league that happens to be in England. Its ownership is international and their interest is in commercially growing clubs to international size, which means they just want the best coaches – no matter where they’re from. Hence its managerial make-up is four Spanish, three English, two Dutch, two Portuguese, one Australian, one Austrian, one Danish, one German, one Italian, one Northern Irish, one Scottish and one Welsh.

Dangerous Daily Mail coverage

World News

One thing needs to be made clear at this point. It would be wholly incorrect to accuse Jeff Powell of the Daily Mail of either intentionally or unintentionally reframing the rhetoric and phrasing of Adolf Hitler in the form of a football article. Or indeed, of being in some way Nazi-adjacent in the rhetoric of what was a logical, well-reasoned article this week on the issues surrounding overseas managerial appointments.

A key lesson of the week, however, is just how vital it is to stay in control of our message; to be so, so careful about how we express