Bizarre. That the most common impression after reading the article about Thomas Tuchel. The England manager took time to sit down with former England international and Sky Sports pundit Daniel Sturridge in a soon-to-be-released documentary called ‘Reflections: England’s World Cup Journey’. The film is due to be released today on the England app exclusively, but some parts were released today, and one bizarre Tuchel statement was highlighted.
As always, the English public expected so much from this World Cup and as always, the football didn’t ‘come home’ and the Three Lions were defeated by Argentina in the semi-finals. Tuchel was heavily criticized for his defensive approach once his team took the lead, which eventually led to a 2-1 loss, but the German didn’t have any regrets over that decision. Instead, he regretted not eating the grass on the iconic Azteca stadium after the Mexico game.”I texted a friend after the match and I just wrote, ‘I regret that I didn’t eat some grass after the match to keep something from this in my body forever’,” said Tuchel.
The Mexico game was the highlight of England’s performance at the World Cup, as they not only won at the Azteca stadium and successfully fought high-attitude conditions, but also managed a 3-2 win with 10 men one the field.”In the middle of Mexico City and we arrived and it’s an oasis, it’s so peaceful, it’s an unbelievable pitch and it is so calm, it is so peaceful that it did something to the players. They came out from the gym straight out on the pitch, they were having phone calls, walking around, it was such a peaceful energy. So we came up with this line of ‘silence is powerful’, that we enjoy the silence, we’re in a home country, we will play against the whole nation, the whole nation will be against us, the stadium, it’s almost impossible to win in the stadium, no one has ever done it before in a World Cup match. We even had five minutes on the match day of meditation and manifestation of the last whistle” he revealed.
The Nations League is coming next for England in September and they are facing world champions Spain in 10 days. Tuchel is optimistic, mainly due to the fact that the World Cup really created a bond between him and the players.”It feels like they are my players now. This is the beauty of it. When you have a manager and then you have success and you have painful moments together, but you have so much time together and then you create a natural bond. I’m very excited. I’m excited to work with these players. I’m excited to have new, young players that we can bring into camp and that they can learn.
We’ve got another step closer and I think we’re there. We have all the right to hold our heads high and go with courage and positivity into the next challenges. We have four matches in the Nations League coming up and that’s where the focus is” said the German.