Football Daily - BONUS: New era under Thomas Tuchel awaits

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

England prepare for the first game under Thomas Tuchel. John Murray & Ian Dennis speak to Tuchel and captain Harry Kane before the World Cup qualifier vs Albania.The new England manager talks about the players at his disposal, and in which formation he may use them. Also hear from Bayern Munich's Kane, who feels his former manager is the right man to lead England to a first trophy since 1966.Timecodes: 01:00 Changes in camp 06:15 Thomas Tuchel with John Murray 13:05 Excitement around a new era 15:10 Harry Kane with Ian Dennis 20:00 Kane still at the top of his game 21:15 Albania coming to WembleyBBC Sounds/ 5 Live commentaries this week: England v Albania - World Cup qualifier - 19:45 - Friday 21st March Man City v Chelsea - Women’s Super League - 19:45 - Sunday 23rd March England v Latvia - World Cup qualifier - 19:45 - Monday 24th March

BBC Sounds music radio podcast. The Football Daily podcast. Listen on BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm John Murray. Welcome to this five live Football Daily bonus edition on the eve of England's opening World Cup qualifier against Albania at Wembley on Friday night and I can see the arch of Wembley Stadium if I look to my left a red light is just flicking on and off almost right at the top of it and if I turn to my right I can see Ian Dennis sitting next to me and you and I are going to be commentating on what is also of course Thomas Tuchel's first match as England manager.

Yes, and after listening to him today, along with Harry Kane. Yes, and we're gonna hear from them both shortly. We are, and after we spoke to them, you know, the other day we were at St. George's Park and we were talking about the subtle changes that it made, about how they changed the schedule around that they did the press conferences first,

then the training, again, that was the case today. But normally, we'd have the manager and the captain or the manager and the player sitting side by side but Thomas Tuchel I think because he didn't want to sort of like overshadow the player he wanted it more to be like the Champions League format where you get the player separately and then the manager but Thomas Tuchel actually came in first whereas a Champions League match you'd have the player first and the manager so Thomas Tuchel sat came in first, whereas a Champions League match should have the player first and the manager, so Thomas Tuchel sat on his own and then Harry Kane came in but again just another subtle change and then as for

the training, once again the two pitches were in operation so the four goalkeepers were on one pitch where they trained at Tottenham's training ground and then the outfield players were training on the other and incidentally all 22 outfield players were training, no injury concerns, the only news to tell you is that Cole Palmer who's been with Chelsea getting assessed throughout the week has not been called up and Thomas Tuchel said it makes no sense to call him up now so he is out of the equation but apart from that everybody is available. It was slightly surprising it's taken so long to actually confirm that Cole Palmer was out of contention and out of this squad and the only thing I can think and it wasn't said today was that they perhaps

thought there was a chance he would be available for the Latvia match on Monday? Yeah, because I like you when I saw that Morgan Gibbs White had been called up on Sunday I thought well it's only a matter of time before they then say okay Palmer's out of the squad and when it didn't happen you're thinking oh maybe there is a chance but Palmer's out of the squad. And when it didn't happen, you're thinking, oh, maybe there is a chance, but clearly that's not the case. So the day has almost arrived for Thomas Tuchel, only the third foreigner, third non-Englishman to be in charge of the England national team,

the first German to be in charge. And he was, I would have have said dealing with him today very consistent with how he's been over the course of the the months now that I've been speaking to him. Yeah I thought he he came across very very confident didn't he? He was posed the question about sort of like the international football and how the players are adapting to him and he said well I'm actually adapting to international football as well and in his sense he said it was a crash course for me too you know he's only had the

10 days the three full training sessions or he will only have 10 days and three full training sessions but he says he's excited he talked very highly about the players attitude and their level of sharpness in training didn't he so but I don't know about you he's not, well he will be judged on these games but England realistically will not be judged on a qualifying campaign when you think that for major qualifiers they haven't lost a qualifier since 2009. It will be get the job done, qualify with ease and then he'll seriously be judged when it

comes to the United States in the World Cup. Now obviously if things go awry then he'll be judged badly and he'll be out of the job but when it really comes to the crunch England, whether it be Gareth Southgate, Roy Hodgson, previous managers qualifying has not been a problem for England since the 2008 Euros, has it? He did speak today because I think in his interview with ITV ahead of this match he talked about how it was his feeling that England at the Euros were, in inverted commas, too afraid and he said, Thomas Tuchel, that that was his feeling way before he took this job. And the talk from him was that he wanted England to express themselves. And he said he wanted to see a joy to win, not a fear to lose.

And I mentioned that because I touched on that on the interview that is coming up very shortly. And also, we don't know whether he's going to go three at the back or four at the back. That's something that we're going to find out. Yeah. On that initial point, and you mentioned it to him and I spoke to Harry Kane separately, the fear of failure used to be something that you could level at an England team when they were struggling to get past either the last 16 or the quarterfinals. Under Gareth Southgate, I thought they'd bridge that fear of failure and it was interesting when he talked, someone asked him a question about

the shirt weighs heavy with England and that was an expression of Fabio Capello a lot when Fabio was in charge and he said well actually the shirt's very light and it's going to be even lighter they're working on it in a minute, it's gonna be even lighter, come the United States because of the climate. I know the point that, when the question was made they were trying to make,

but that fear of failure I think used to be a problem, and I remember Glenn Hoddle talking about it, that they had to use it as a stepping stone rather than a stumbling block. And England have, in recent tournaments, have used that stepping stone to get to either a semi-final or a final of the Euros in recent tournaments have used that stepping stone to get to either a semi-final or a final of the Euros in consecutive tournaments. However it's that next stepping stone to actually going on to win a trophy.

So I thought in some respects Thomas Tuchel needed to, well there needs to be a little bit more respect shown to the players before Ungara Southgate because they have now, it's all England are missing now, is that final piece of the jigsaw. That's what's missing, that's why Thomas Tuchel has been brought in, but as you say you've been speaking to him so let's hear from him. Thomas, today is the the first day of astronomical spring, so there are new beginnings all over the place. Have you have you felt the the spring in your step again this week?

Now that you mention it, I feel it. I feel it everywhere. No, no, it was a very good week so far. Very good start. I feel very alive to be back with the team and back with players on the pitch. And the players were amazing as a group and in a level of quality of the training so hopefully we can transport it tomorrow to Wembley. Can you give us a bit of an insight into how you've communicated with everyone this week because when we spoke to the players earlier this week

I thought it was very interesting what they were telling us about how much you'd spoken to them before the squad selection and indeed around the squad selection. So what's your modus operandi when you've got the players around you? When I have them around me, well you know it's easier than in club football because they stay the whole day. So you see them before lunch, you see them after lunch, before dinner, after dinner, they stay, they play table tennis, darts, whatever. It's easy to join in and have a little chat with everyone. Do you play?

Yeah, I let them win of course to give them a good feeling. That is easy. And then sometimes these informal talks are more important and always give big messages to just feel their energy and feel a little bit there to get to know their personality. So there's a very easy atmosphere around it because it feels like a training camp. And then of course we have meetings and they hear my voice a lot so sometimes I leave them all alone to not be too much. And in terms of what you've been working on, there's a great deal of discussion amongst the likes of us about whether it's going to be a three or a four and of course in your

time you've switched around quite a lot haven't you? So give us an idea what you see as the factors that determine whether you go with a three or a four for any particular match? Well it is, first of all the choice of the structure is what players do you have normally until now in club football. Now we can do a selection more or less into what we need and to what we have. We can select players but on a club structure I normally choose my structure from first of all from the talent pool and the qualities of the players where they feel confident in

which spaces they can express themselves and they can maybe the best version of themselves. So now it's a bit easier because we can pick more or less what we want but it's not about playing my style. I think we have so many offensive players that we should play on the front foot. I think we have a lot of wingers for example that are strongest when they play from the wide positions. So this then feeds into our decision how we want to play, to put the strengths of the players in where they're used to play and where they can express themselves.

And then maybe we find some connection within clubs that they played already on the same side together and some of the connections we need to find new on an international level and from there we go. And the adaptation comes then I think off the ball because every opponent has a different way of attacking, has a different way to do the build-up and if we want to have high ball recoveries, if we want to be a team that can adapt to the various structures of the opponent and to implement our strengths there. We often heard Gareth Southgate as well talking about wanting the players to express themselves. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. It's easier said than done isn't it? Yes it's easier said than done. I think it needs a lot of clarity which position

you play and needs some guidelines and some rules for it and then within these rules, within these guidelines they can be creative but you need to be a good teammate, you need to respect the space of your teammates around you. And I think we have potential to be better than that and hopefully we can see this from tomorrow. You're ready to go though. You talked to them didn't you about putting the star on the shirt at the start of the week and two home matches to begin with. You can't ask for much more than that, can you? and two home matches to begin with? You can't ask for much more than that, can you? Yeah, the target is clear but I think it is also sometimes important to just name it so everyone agrees on it and everyone agreed on it. That's why we are here. We want to make the very

difficult task happen. That's what we agreed on, that's what excites us and that is the challenge. We want to arrive in America first of all and then we want to win. But how do we do this? Not by talking and not by dreaming, but by actually doing something which is worshipping the camp and the days in the camp. So this is what we demanded everyone to focus on the process, focus on the daily business, take care of all the days that we have together and this is what the team did so far. Hopefully we have a good training session later in the afternoon to prepare defensively for Albania

and then we should be ready to go. Good luck with it. Thank you. The EuroLeagues on the Football Daily. Thursdays on the Football Daily join the EuroLeagues team as we bring you the latest from across the continent with a host of top European football journalists. Nobody expected to challenge for the league or to challenge for the Champions League so they're still within the targets. It's not whistling just to whistle

or try to pretend you're the referee and you're whistling for something. The whistling is actually part of the song. The Euroleagues only on the Football Daily listen on BBC Sounds. This is Five Live Sports. The Football Daily podcast. So there we are, Thomas Tuchel, his last interview with us before his first match, the home game

against Albania at Wembley on Friday night, commentary on Five Live, Latvia on Monday, Serbia and Andorra, the other two teams in this qualifying group. And, you know, it's, the point is almost with us, isn't it? I think generally So far for Thomas Tuchel and it's easy to say because they've not kicked the ball yet There is a different feel to it that genuinely is yeah, I think speaking to the players this week There's been a there is a genuine excitement Obviously whenever you get a new manager in any walk of life whether it be football even all of a sudden There's a well, I'm gonna show you what I can do.

There's a, you pick yourself up, don't you? You all of a sudden, there's an extra spring in your step with regardless whatever vocation that you choose to, whether it be on the football field or even in a factory. So, but looking at the, he's the 16th permanent manager. And if you quick count up here, 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 the last 10 permanent managers have all won their opening game going all the way back to Sir Bobby Robson who drew his opening fixture away to Denmark in 1982

Ron Greenwood incidentally also drew his opening game. The only manager of the previous 15 permanent England managers who's lost his first game in charge was... Saral Framsey. Five-two away to France in a European Championship qualifier in 1963. So just surmising that things do go awry in front of a sellout Wembley, you might be able to say there could be an omen. So we will have a German manager of England for the first time trying to win something for England for the first time since Sattel-Framsey

who won something against the Germans. And maybe that's where the jigsaw all licked together. Maybe, maybe. Yes. Listen, one thing that hasn't changed is that Harry Kane is still the captain. So Harry Kane's the captain. It'll be his 104th cap against Albania in this opening World Cup qualifier. The man who scored 69 goals for England and you sat down with him in advance of the match. Harry, first of all, can you just give us some sort of insight as to what it was like when Thomas addressed the players the other day because I've heard some say it was quite intense.

Yeah it was. Whenever Thomas is in a meeting or on the pitch with us it's very enthusiastic, it's very energetic and the meeting was no different. I think he's very excited about being our coach, he's very excited about the prospect of what we can achieve together and he showed that in the meeting and I think that made a lot of the players excited, that made us believe even more what we have in our team. And training was no different. Training has been at the highest level so far this week. A lot of energy, a lot of high level play. And ultimately it's about now taking that into the first game tomorrow.

So it's been an exciting camp so far and we're looking forward to the rest of the days. Of those 26 players, you will know him the best, so you've probably been asked questions about what he's going to be like, but what qualities does he have, like to be the final piece of the jigsaw, to take England to that final step? I think we spoke about certain stuff, especially in the summer, about little details where he feels like we can improve. I feel like he brings great experience, he brings an aura around him of being a winner and all things that help you become a major tournament. You know, it's not just about how you are on the pitch, but also, you know, as a squad, as a team,

as a one with the coach included, how people look at you from the outside as well. And I think we're already building that reputation of being one of the best teams in the world and I think Thomas has added even another layer to that. Ultimately it will be down to us on the pitch to help implement his plans and go out there with a real freedom of believing in ourselves. I think with respect to you and the rest of the players and also Gareth Southgate, that fear of failure that could be addressed to England in previous years, more recently has disappeared but you're still missing that final piece of the jigsaw aren't you? Yeah we've been extremely close to

being you know two-time European champion and we've been as successful as any other team in England for the last 50 years but yeah normally you're going to be judged on whether you win finals or not. Earlier in Gareth's reign we spoke about being able to get to semi-finals and finals and keep repeating that and we're kind of at that stage now. And now it's about winning something. I think when you have been to two finals, a semi-final, a quarter-final, other countries stand up and notice you a little bit more and your belief, our belief grows a little bit more. So, going into next summer there's no other talk about anything else than winning it and that's important conversations to have, we can't hide away from that. We know there'll be a long journey,

a tough journey, a lot of ups and downs. You'll need things to fall into place and you need a bit of luck and all those things that help you become winners and this is the first step in that direction. Next week marks 10 years since you made your England debut. How would you describe that journey over the last decade? It's been an incredible journey from when I first started England, where England were as a team, even my first tournament in 2016, got knocked out so early, to where we are now is completely different, a completely different feel about it, completely different expectation,

and I've been proud to be a part of that and to help with all those things. And yeah, it goes super quick, so I know these tournaments come around quick and there's not going to be seven or eight left, there'll be a few left hopefully, but you want to take these opportunities whilst they're here and we feel like the squad is in as good a place as ever. It's just another opportunity to try and do something that will go down in the history books forever. And you're in as good as form as ever, 76 goals and 82 appearances for Bayern. But next summer you'll be 33 years of age. How long do you want to continue playing and leading for your country?

Yeah, as long as possible I think. I spoke about this a lot. And whilst I'm playing at the level I'm playing at there's no reason for me to stop you know if I was putting up those numbers at 25 years old you know everyone would be hoping I'd stay around for forever so and that's kind of my mindset you know whilst I'm still performing the way I'm performing I'll be available for England and try and help England be successful of course there will be a stage where it comes to an end but as you know I like to look at the likes of Ronaldo and these guys and you know they're still going and there's no reason why I won't want to keep going as well.

Well mate, continue. Yeah for sure. Thank you Harry. Good luck with tomorrow. Thank you. So there we are, the England captain Harry Kane who of course was playing for Thomas Tuchel at Bayern Munich last season. Yes, and before we sat down actually I showed him my notes, my little homework, and I told

him that he is two goals away from a half century of goals off his right foot alone for England, which I think he was quite pleasantly surprised about. He then said, well how many have I scored with the head of my my left foot and I said 10 with your head and 11 with your left foot But I also got the impression and in that last question in particular When I was talking about you know, how long does he want to go on for and his record, you know that whether it's He feels a little underappreciated. I just thought, you know, he said, and that's why I said to him, well, long may it continue.

But even his record for buying, he scored 76 goals in 82 appearances. You know, he is as good as ever. And this is, he's gonna be playing under a manager who, when they were together last season, got the very best out of him, 44 goals. So I think Harry Kane was quite happy today just to come up and talk about the

excitement and what is required. So it was good to see him. But whilst we were doing that, you shot off from Tottenham's training ground, didn't you? And you darted back to Wembley to listen in to the Albanian press conference. Yeah, and of course, Silvino is the manager, the coach of Albania, the former Arsenal and indeed Manchester City left back and Pablo Zabaleta, who I'm sure many listeners will have fond memories of, is still his assistant and Silvino, he's got a couple of injury issues actually, Ismaili and Kumbula, I saw them on the pitch at Wembley, I'm not sure they'll be involved, certainly in the starting lineup, but he said, when we asked him about what Thomas Tuchel is

going to do, Sylvinho of Albania said we know the way he likes to play, he said we know what to expect for a system, but he said I'm not going to talk about what to expect, but you know if you think they've been to the last two Euros, Albania, and even though they went out the group stage in Germany, they put in spirited performances in all three of the matches in what was an extremely tough group. And yes, they've just been relegated in the Nations League, but I think they are not to be underestimated. They've got some good players. And Berat Jimshitty of Atalanta is their captain you know and if anyone knows about punching above their weight Atalanta and his team

regularly do that so not to be underestimated. No we've seen in in recent fixtures for England at Wembley when teams sit in and pose a threat on the counter-attack that they can frustrate England and they can get a little bit of rewards I'm thinking Iceland and I'm thinking Greece when they won here as well. Although Albania will have to fare a lot better on their previous two visits to Wembley because they've lost both of them by five goals to nil and indeed the last one all five goals were scored in the first half and Harry Kane scored a hat-trick but I would imagine as well that you know I remember even when I

covered Northern Ireland when Northern Ireland weren't doing so well you know probably about I don't know 15 16 years ago there was always for any nation there's always that sense of optimism at the start of a new campaign until it starts to go wrong so Albania will have that little bit of extra zip and zest in their play out of thought and they'll look to try and frustrate England for as long as possible. And I was also told today by some of the people who follow Albania regularly that obviously this being London there is a there is a big contingent of Albanians who live in London and and I was told that many them, in fact I was told thousands have got tickets all around Wembley Stadium

and will be making themselves heard because they are very, very passionate football supporters and I'm looking forward to seeing their chalashas, which are the hats that they wear, you know those little hats? The chalasha, yeah so be able to look out for those tomorrow in the crowd at Wembley Stadium. So yes, we will have the commentary with Matthew Upson, Leon Osmond will be with us as well, so join us for that live from Wembley Stadium on Five Life and BBC Sounds. 7.45 kick off, Five Life Sport will be on air at seven o'clock, Mark Chapman's presenting and then commentary as well on England, Latvia on Monday night on Five Life.