Well, that kicked off a bit didn’t it? By now it seems fairly clear we all need a break from people having feelings about The Germans, and specifically about the morality or otherwise of a German being employed as manager of the England men’s football team.
Except, perhaps not quite yet. How about it? Once more, this time with feeling? At the very least, as the tide retreats on all that free-floating anxiety, it is probably worth taking a look at the reaction itself, which is, as ever, the part that seems to stick.
One thing needs to be made clear at this point. It would be wholly incorrect to accuse Jeff Powell of the Daily Mail of either intentionally or unintentionally reframing the rhetoric and phrasing of Adolf Hitler in the form of a football article. Or indeed, of being in some way Nazi-adjacent in the rhetoric of what was a logical, well-reasoned article this week on the issues surrounding overseas managerial appointments.
Clearly, Powell’s widely shared article condemning the appointment of Thomas Tuchel shows no actual Hitlerian influences. To suggest anything else is ridiculous. Powell is a respected big beast of the sports journalism world. He broke and indeed assisted in one of the biggest England manager stories ever – Don Revie walking out on his country with a pay cheque from the Daily Mail for the exclusive – so he knows what he’s talking about on the subject of mercenaries and betrayal. A key lesson of the week, however, is just how vital it is to stay in control of our message; to be so, so careful about how we express ourselves around issues where emotions run high and misinterpretation is not just possible but likely.
As a prime example of this, it was striking how many parts of Powell’s own article on Tuchel could, taken out of context, sound a bit like sentences drawn from the collected writings and speeches of Hitler, including the autobiographical manifesto Mein Kampf. Below are just a few examples of this misleading process, skimmed out from first paragraph to last.
Powell: The birthright of the country which gave football to the world was being sold. Hitler: It was a filthy crime against the people, a stab in the back of the nation.
Powell: How can a foreigner urge Englishmen to do or die on football’s battlefield? Hitler: I can fight only for something that I love, and respect only what I know.
Powell: That Three-Lion heart is still beating. Hitler: Those who have still a German heart and a love for their people.
Powell: Ominously, his English is not so good. Hitler: They speak German as awkwardly as they probably speak English awkwardly.
Now, this is obviously just coincidence. But there is a much wider point here, one that applies to all of us, specifically just how easy it is for rhetoric to take on its own misleading life when it comes to these highly emotive topics. We all do it at times. Zoom out a bit and the entire vernacular of England manager-dom, the narrative of failure, betrayal and entitlement, can sound a bit Mein Kampf-ish. Not because it is fascist to want England to win, but because this story is an archetype, and because the basic language of sport and nationalism always will overlap to some degree.
So both areas have notions of “birthright” and a sacred trust. Much like those of Weimar Germany, the frustrations of England football tend to rest on a basic notion of betrayal, the people sold short by a blazered and chinless elite. Money-grubbing external forces are in the mix, in the shape of Sven, Capello, the Premier League. What is required is unity, clarity of purpose (the impure, the anthem-confused, will rightly fail). And of course it is better to suffer as one entity than to seek decadent success with Tuchel.
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And yes, you could nitpick over some of the inaccuracies in Powell’s article. Swedes aren’t really cross-country skiers who spend half their lives in darkness. Powell wasn’t proved correct in his conviction Sven-Göran Eriksson would be a disaster (although the English guy who came next was). Tuchel wasn’t sacked by Bayern Munich. Powell seems to think Henry V actually delivered the St Crispin’s Day speech (this happened in a play). He also insists that every single nation in the world must have an English kitman, perhaps unintentionally. He appears to be suggesting Tuchel’s English isn’t good, which would be both weird and incorrect.
But the most frustrating part, the real casualty of the way words can sometimes get away from us, is the fact Powell is right in his main point. International football teams should be coached by their own domestic coaches. It’s more interesting that way. This is supposed to be a test of systems, one sporting culture ranged against another, a way of learning and improving. Otherwise what’s the point?
The problem arrives when this idea gets too exciting, when we lose sight of the fact Tuchel for England is just one person having a job. Or indeed, if we forget why England have an overseas manager, which is that English football decided a while back it’s just not commercially necessary to produce coaches.
With this in mind, why not direct all that anger and discontent at the structures of English football, not its outcomes? This has been going on for decades. English football has no school, no style, no recognisable indigenous coaching culture. Usually we ignore this and talk about VAR or the colour of a cross. Now we have a German and it’s a problem.
The final irony here is that Tuchel does represent English football, or at least what it has chosen to become, a stage for hired talent and outsourced intelligence. Play a longer game. Break the cycle, grow it rather than buy it. And maybe, just maybe we may end up with the most desirable outcome, denied us for so long by corrupt elites, of one nation, one team, one leader. Hmm. Hang on.
