What with the rabid WhatsApp group chats and the barely connected to the game radio mouthpieces and the national newspaper headlines and the formerly important football people referring to things like ‘English blood’, there have been some takes on England’s appointment of Thomas Tuchel. What a normal country, heh? What a surprise, heh?
Anyway, one thing we did see this morning, amongst the diatribes, was that no manager has ever won the men’s World Cup with a country other than their own. An interesting stat, you have to say, but not as interesting as having a real good go at dreaming up the people we’d love to have seen manage England at some point.
We think there are 23 of them below, but we might add more as we go along. Have a read, suggest your own, and yes, we do actually think that Oobah would be pretty good at it …
Marcelo Bielsa
Lives in a one-bedroom flat near Wembley and immediately calls up Luke Ayling, Kalvin Phillips, and Patrick Bamford from a Costa Coffee nearby. The Three Lions bucket is the FA’s best ever selling piece of merch.
Bielsa gets to work straightaway introducing new arbitrary rules for the squad: "NO DEFENDERS OVER 5’11"!" he squawks at a blank Levi Colwill—his international career over as quickly as it started. He employs a surgeon to investigate the shortening of John Stones’ femurs.
Players are split into two. One group is running laps of St. George’s Park, pursued by a pack of Hispanaphone analysts with whistles and stopwatches. The other group is running a hand wash valet service in the Sainsbury’s car park. They swap on the hour.
In their first game, they beat Greece 5–2. It is beautiful. The ball moves around the pitch like a shooting star, and Anthony Gordon, looking notably thin, covers unprecedented ground in his new box-to-box midfield role. Jack Grealish is calm. He has found clarity in the chaos. This is peace, contentment; it’s new. Meanwhile, Jordan Pickford’s whole head has imploded, and he is replaced ten mins in.
(Most of this one from our Leeds mate Dan in a rabid WhatsApp group)
Will Still
Will Still has led Reims to an 18-game unbeaten run in all competitions. At 30 years old, he’s the youngest manager in Europe’s top five leagues.
Reims pay a £22,000 fine each time Still manages because he doesn’t have his UEFA Pro License 🤯
Carol Vorderman
Another goal please, Carol.
Gordon Brown
Real seven at the back, three up front sort of thing going on here. Gigantic half-time bollockings. Wears a Raith Rovers scarf every game.