Coaching is about, ‘How do I get people to play at their peak level?’ It is a spiritual quest. And if it’s not that, you don’t have a challenge, you don’t have a mission. Forming a brotherhood and trying to move it forward – that’s what coaching is.
Phil Jackson, 11-time NBA title winning coach
Wembley stadium, London. Thomas Tuchel was standing with a notepad in his hands, surrounded by Chelsea players and support staff. It was after the end of extra time during Saturday’s FA Cup final against Liverpool. Penalties awaited. Tuchel, in his trademark tracksuit and baseball cap, seemed to be asking his players for names to be put forward to take the penalty kicks in the shootout due to begin shortly.
Tuchel first cast his eye around as if in search of someone in particular. “Jorginho?” the German finally said after identifying the Italian. Once the midfielder gave his consent, Tuchel hunched over and jotted down his name.
The German then swivelled left to face the gaggle of players that contained some other Chelsea stars.
“Ziyech?” Yep, the Moroccan gestured.
“Mount?” Yeah, okay boss, the Englishman seemed to say.
“Barkley?” A solemn nod.
Tuchel took down the names of all three on his notepad.
THE KLOPP WAY
A few feet away, Virgil Van Dijk and Jurgen Klopp were talking to each other. They could have been two teenage boys delightfully recounting how they had outsmarted the school bully together. They joked about and laughed. Somewhere in between, there was even a gentle high-five. Klopp moved on from Van Dijk to 19-year-old Harvey Elliott, giving the England Under-21 player a hug and two quick pats on the back. The former Dortmund manager also gave a brisk tap on the shoulder of Curtis Jones, whose back was turned to Klopp.
Keeping spirits high. The Klopp way.
Watching Liverpool’s manager, you couldn’t have guessed that his team was about to take part in a penalty shootout to decide the winner of the FA Cup. With an unprecedented quadruple of the league, the Champions League, the FA Cup and Carabao Cup (which Liverpool have already won) on the line.
“If we are only happy when we are winning in the end, whenever your race finishes, what life would that be?” Klopp had wondered the day before the FA Cup final.
“When I say, ‘Enjoy the journey’, I mean it. Enjoy the journey because there have been so many great moments already.”
Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott weren’t even named in the Liverpool squad as substitutes for the final. But Klopp made them feel part of the occasion.
Jones and Elliott were only the more recent recipients of Klopp’s famed man-management.
RELATIONSHIPS FIRST, FOOTBALL SECOND
The former Borussia Dortmund player Nuri Sahin once wrote about the conversation he had had with the then Dortmund coach Klopp when Sahin came to know that Real Madrid wanted to sign him. “I had heard my name mentioned in transfer rumours before, but never with Real Madrid,” wrote Sahin in The Players Tribune. “And now, here they were. The white kits, the Bernabeu, the history…”
When Sahin spoke to Klopp about Real Madrid’s interest, Klopp told him: “Nuri, it is your choice. But if you leave, you must know, I will always be on your side. You are my friend forever.”
“I will remember our conversation forever,” wrote Sahin.
In contrast to Klopp’s treatment of his players, Tuchel’s treatment on Saturday of Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who has struggled to find his optimal playing position under the German, was markedly different.
The 26-year-old Loftus-Cheek, a midfielder by trade, was introduced in the first period of Extra Time as a centre-forward before Tuchel substituted him back for Ross Barkley in the 120th minute, less than 15 minutes later.
“That was purely for penalties,” Tuchel explained. “Ruben does not have a good history statistically and Ross has. So it was purely down to the penalties.” To be fair to Tuchel, Barkley did convert his spot kick in the shootout. However, Tuchel’s comments also showed his utter lack of confidence in Loftus-Cheek and risks alienating him further.
But how do you treat players? Is there a right way and a wrong way?
But how do you treat players? Is there a right way and a wrong way? Both Tuchel and Klopp have won 10 top-level trophies as managers. Klopp has won 3 league titles, Tuchel has 2. Both have won the Champions League once. Both have won domestic cups and the FIFA Club World Cup.
Klopp is recognised as having more of an emotional approach to management. Tuchel has reputation of being more analytical.
To explore this further, let’s look at Tuchel’s troubles this season with Romelu Lukaku, bought by Chelsea for a club record €115 million last summer. Lukaku arrived at Stamford Bridge fresh from firing Internazionale to the Scudetto last summer. He is also a proven performer in the English Premier League, with an excellent scoring record with Everton and West Brom and, to a lesser extent, Manchester United.
A PRIZEFIGHTER WHO CAN’T THROW PUNCHES
The Belgian has struggled to fit in at Chelsea, however. The Blues do not play to his strengths and seem to prosper with the more nimble Timo Werner or Kai Havertz as the number 9. A month-long absence in November due to injury has not helped matters either. If Lukaku does not fit into Tuchel’s preferred system of playing, why buy him in the first place? If the Belgian was bought over Tuchel’s head, whose decision was it?
Lukaku has scored 15 goals for Chelsea this season but has rarely resembled the ‘final piece of the jigsaw’ he was purported to be when he joined the club from Inter. Chelsea were already European champions when they bought Lukaku. He was supposed to help them make the leap to catch Manchester City and Liverpool at the top of the English game. Instead, by late December comments appeared in the media quoting Lukaku in which he stated he was “not happy” with his situation at Chelsea.
The Belgian went on to say he knew he would return to Inter one day and that he was “in love with Italy.”
Lukaku’s presence inside the penalty box still causes chaos amidst opposition defenders, but this is more by reputation than deed. Traces of his hold-up play, which made him such a crucial member of the Inter attack, are still there. But his goalscoring touch and confidence have gone.
Tuchel dropped Lukaku from the Chelsea squad in response to the comments and fined him. But he reinstated the 29-year-old into the team after he apologised. “We have to be adult enough to accept the apology,” Tuchel said.
During the FA Cup final against Liverpool, Lukaku looked a shadow of the player he was in Italy. His presence inside the penalty box still causes chaos amidst opposition defenders, but this is more by reputation than deed. Traces of his hold-up play, which made him such a crucial member of the Inter attack, are still there. But his goalscoring touch and confidence have gone. He looks a striker becalmed, like the South Korea team that played Germany in the 2002 World Cup semifinal after giant-killing wins over Italy and Spain. South Korea lost that semifinal 0-1 and ended up finishing in fourth place in the World Cup.
Tuchel has not given up on helping Lukaku regain form. “If you feel good as a person, you are better as a player,” the Chelsea coach said in April. “If you struggle as a player, you maybe struggle to feel the same confidence as a person. But he is trying everything…. It is in him and in us. I think he is still in the right place (at Chelsea) but there are still things to improve. We will not give up.”
To be fair to Tuchel, he may not be known for his gregariousness but he has gone about his job with dignity and has tried to shield his players from the media glare following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year. Chelsea’s owner Roman Abramovich has been sanctioned by the United Kingdom and the club are in the midst of being bought by a consortium led by American businessman Todd Boehly. Tuchel has been praised for the professionalism he has displayed under difficult working conditions, even as results have tailed off alarmingly. Including Thursday’s draw with Leicester City, Chelsea have now collected 12 points from a possible 27 in their last 9 league matches.
TUCHEL CAN TAKE HEART FROM PAST
But when working under the right conditions, Tuchel also has a track record of getting the best out of his players.
Step forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
The Barcelona striker recorded the best figures of his career during the two years he spent under Tuchel at Borussia Dortmund. In 2015-2016 and 2016-17, Aubameyang scored 39 and 40 goals respectively, also being crowned the Bundesliga’s top scorer in 2017.
After Aubameyang was freezed out of the Arsenal squad by manager Mikel Arteta in December 2021 for “breaching discipline” and failing to be punctual, Tuchel spoke about how he had managed the Gabonese striker.
When we wanted him to be on time, we told him the meeting was at 10.45am when the meeting was at 11am so there was a good chance he would be there with everyone else.
Thomas Tuchel, on how he managed Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang at Borussia Dortmund
“Back in the days at Dortmund, it was a pure pleasure to have (Aubameyang) in the squad. Auba was a fantastic striker, a fantastic finisher on the pitch. But more than that, he was a fantastic worker off the pitch. I think he did not miss one single training in two years,” Tuchel said.
“Maybe he arrived five minutes late on the training ground, that can happen with him! But if he does this, he is in a hurry, he excuses, he feels sorry, he still has a smile on his face,” he said.
“When we wanted him to be on time, we told him the meeting was at 10.45am when the meeting was at 11am so there was a good chance he would be there with everyone else. It’s not the biggest problem. But don’t forget that he was also a top, top professional who never missed any training session.”
Next season, Tuchel will once again go back to the drawing board to try and outsmart an old rival from his Bundesliga days – Pep Guardiola.
LOTS OF PASSION, SOME COMPASSION
With 3 English Premier League titles in the last 4 years, Guardiola is considered to be the pre-eminent coach of the world game today.
The City manager recently spoke about how his approach to man-management has evolved over the years.
“I know them (the players) much better (now),” the Spanish coach told City’s official website in March. “I understood as I got older that they want to do well.”
“Me personally, as a manager, I am not cool enough or clear enough to analyse what happened in the game immediately to the players. There are too many emotions. Maybe I learned.
“Sometimes, I talked after the game. Sometimes, when I am angry, I say, ‘Take time, go home and tomorrow, we’ll talk with the team about what you feel was the real game’. Sometimes, you are aggressive and you are unfair to the players because they want to do well.”
A TOUCH OF EMPATHY
Guardiola’s empathy was reflected in his comments before City’s match against Newcastle United, their first since being eliminated from the Champions League this season in sensational fashion by Real Madrid in the semifinal.
“Given the circumstances around what happened on Wednesday night,” a reporter asked Guardiola, “can you expect the players to forget about that?”
“They don’t have to forget it,” said the City coach, getting animated. “How are we going to forget it? We’re going to play against Newcastle, thinking about that, for sure….
“…(At) 89 minutes (against Real Madrid) they’re 0-1. We’re through. But Madrid has done this for many years. They have this belief, the past, the incredible players on the pitch (who had done that before), the Di Stefanos and Puskas and Raul and Cristiano (Ronaldo)…. We will fight against that and we handle it as much as possible… But it is not easy.”
Guardiola said he still remembered City’s narrow defeat to Tottenham Hotspur in the 2018/19 Champions League quarter-final, in which Raheem Sterling’s goal in stoppage time was disallowed for offside. Tottenham went on to beat Ajax in the semifinal and eventually lost to Liverpool in the final.
“It’s still there,” said Guardiola, referring to that memory.
“That’s why I am a manager, I live these situations. I love it, I like it. We (at City) like it.”
Pep Guardiola, by his own admission, enjoys the theatre, the headrush of fighting for the biggest titles.
So does Jurgen Klopp.
“I couldn’t respect more what (City) are doing. I like watching them. I cannot say I love a lot of opponents, or competitors, but I really like watching City,” Klopp said recently in an interview with Premier League Productions.
Thomas Tuchel will also be in the mix.
“We will be competitive, on which level we will see,” the Chelsea manager recently said, looking ahead to the next season. “We are rebuilding, not improving the squad. We are rebuilding. This is always challenging but we are up for the challenge. What I can promise is that I will be here if I can promise that. I will be here with full energy and positive energy no matter what.”
With a notepad at the ready, if need be.