Thomas Tuchel to start life as England manager with trip to Tottenham
The new England boss will attend his first Premier League game in the role as Spurs face Newcastle on Saturday
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Your support makes all the difference.Thomas Tuchel will attend his first match as England‘s new head coach on Saturday lunchtime when Tottenham host Newcastle.
The 51-year-old German, whose contract officially started on New Year’s Day, will then attend further games across the Premier League weekend alongside his assistant Anthony Barry.
The match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium will give him the opportunity to see the likes of James Maddison, Dominic Solanke, Anthony Gordon and Lewis Hall in action.
He and his support team are then due to visit the training base at St George’s Park for the first time next week.
The complex in Staffordshire will be Tuchel and his team’s main place of work, and they plan to hold a series of introductory meetings with relevant members of staff across the course of next week.
Tuchel has already indicated his eagerness to meet with Lee Carsley, who led England on an interim basis through the Nations League matches in the autumn. Carsley has now returned to his role as head coach of the Under-21s, as have others like Ashley Cole who supported Carsley during his time with the senior team.
Other members of Tuchel’s support team are also starting work this week.
They include goalkeeping coach Henrique Hilario, who had occupied the same position with Chelsea since 2016. Nicolas Mayer, who worked with Tuchel at Paris St Germain and Bayern Munich, will be the performance coach and Tuchel is also linking up again with analyst James Melbourne, having crossed paths at Chelsea.
Tuchel’s first matches in charge will be the World Cup qualifiers against Albania on 21 March and Latvia three days later, with his contract running through to the finals of that tournament in the summer of 2026.
Tuchel has promised to make contact with Arsenal defender Ben White over the possibility of a return to the England set-up.
The German told reporters at December’s World Cup qualifying draw in Zurich: “I will reach out to him. It should be a clean start and a clear narrative.
“I will be in the stadiums from January. I will also not distract the players and they should just know: ‘Okay, the boss is there from January’.”
White has played four times for England at senior level, making his debut in a Euro 2020 warm-up match against Austria.
He was included in the squads for Euro 2020 and the 2022 World Cup under Tuchel’s predecessor Sir Gareth Southgate, but did not feature in either tournament.
He is currently sidelined after undergoing a minor knee operation last year.
PA
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