Use this thread for general daily football discussion.
This thread can also be used to discuss Transfer rumours and to post Tier 4 sources.
So, Tommy Tuchel is the new England manager, eh? I haven’t been paying attention to the chatter sounding possible candidates, so I was not expecting that. It seems like a weird appointment.
Fun fact: England is now the only nation in the FIFA top 5 to not have a manager from the same country. Interestingly, Belgium (Italian), Portugal (Spanish) and Colombia (Argentinian) are the others from the top 10.
I’m sure some of that is the language barrier.
If you’re coaching Brazil, you pretty much need to speak Portuguese. Many of the players might have a passing familiarity with English, especially the ones playing in England. But many will be playing in Germany or France or Italy. So, the only real common language will be Portuguese.
Belgian players are most likely multilingual, speaking French, Flemish / Dutch and probably other languages too. Also, with the touchy cultural issues of Belgium, it might not go down to well to have a Dutch-speaking coach who wasn’t also fluent in French. But, if you have a foreign manager that’s less of an issue.
With England, you can be pretty much guaranteed that a large number of the players will be English-only monolingual. OTOH, there will be a lot of coaches who have a decent grasp of English, since it’s really the most common second language for international communication.
Argentina just doesn’t do foreign managers. There are other Spanish speaking countries, but if you look at their manager history, they’ve only had non-Argentinian managers twice, once in 1927-28 where a Spanish manager brought them to the Copa America win and an Olympic silver, and then again in 1934 where an Italian manager took charge for a single game (which he lost).
France isn’t quite as set on French managers, but it has still been nearly 50 years since the last non-French manager. And, in terms of languages, there aren’t as many countries to pick from where French is spoken.
I see your point about multilinguism, but in my experience it’s the less successful or developed nations that have foreign managers. For example, Korea recently had Klinsmann and Bento as managers. I was mostly just taking a jab at England.
Hey now, I’ll have you know that Hong Kong is a definitely successful and developed nation and that Ashley Westwood is a great coach that we signed cuz of our talent and his. /s
I think it took a lot of people by surprise
I just learned that Wojciech Szczesny just signed for Barcelona to replace a long-term injured Ter Stegen. It seems crazy to me that Arsenal didn’t bring him in as a backup keeper this summer. He’d count as a homegrown player. He had massive experience in some of the best clubs, and he’d still be one of the better keepers if someone was injured. He’s only 34, which is young for a keeper too.
Assuming he wanted to start or nothing at a good club, probably. Doubt we didn’t try to get him, but tbh if he was willing to be a backup he might’ve stayed at Juve anyway.
