As Pride Month comes to an end, please indulge me in a confession. I think I’m in love with Thomas Tuchel. Obviously, like you, I wish to God he wasn’t a kraut. But that’s only because he’s manager of the England football team. Otherwise, as far as I can tell, he’s perfect. The rock star charisma. The thrilling sturm und drang style of play. Very clearly, he’s a heaven-sent antidote to the touchy-feely corporate torpor of the Sir Gareth Southgate era.

The German is a manager of the national side suddenly in keeping with the times

The German is a manager of the national side suddenly in keeping with the times

Is that too harsh on Gareth? Perhaps. As the media narrative that developed quickly around the man never ceased to remind us: Southgate was just a good guy doing his best in a difficult job. In fairness, he was appointed in 2016 just as the nation was commencing a fairly vigorous nervous breakdown occasioned by the result of the Brexit referendum, and then leant astonishing momentum first by the murder of George Floyd and subsequently by the Covid pandemic. It was a deeply weird time and perhaps Southgate’s preternatural blandness was exactly what was needed.

But it was also a very disappointing time for England fans during which we contrived while playing dull football not to win two European Championships – despite by some margin having the best players – and also to crash out of the 2022 World Cup at the hands of France in the quarter-finals. When it mattered most, which is to say when there was jeopardy, we played desperately uninspired defensive football.

Southgate’s tenure also coincided almost exactly with the extraordinary era of so-called “corporate........

© The Spectator