While Thomas Tuchel continues to gaslight his employers at the FA into believing he was in no way responsible for England’s comically shambolic semi-final exit at the hands of Argentina, not every head coach who underperformed at the Geopolitics World Cup is still in their job. A total of 17 different managers who took teams to North America have since left their roles, with safety-first’s Steve Clarke, failing-up’s Roberto Martínez and tyranny’s Marcelo Bielsa among them. In Europe, teams such as Portugal (Jorge Jesus), Croatia (Slaven Bilic), Scotland (Sébastien Pocognoli), Czechia (Santi Denia) and Belgium (Mark van Bommel) will go into the Nations League under new management, but it is towards the bigger dogs of the football pack where Football Daily wishes to turn today’s beady gaze.
Germany: Having been accused of using his role as a TV pundit to undermine Julian Nagelsmann during the GWC, it was no great shock to see Jürgen Klopp take over from the 39-year-old when he stepped down. Klopp immediately fired a volley across the bows of the German press pack and will begin his first role in international management with a trip to the Netherlands. Unlike his predecessor, the former Liverpool boss is unlikely to rock up to training on a skateboard and it will be intriguing to see how successfully he instils his ethos of heavy-metal football in a group of players he only gets into the rehearsal room three or four times a season.
While it remains to be seen if the former Spanish midfield maestro is a bike-riding windmill enthusiast with a capacity for extreme bluntness, he was handed his Barcelona debut by Louis van Gaal and name-dropped club legends Johan Cruyff and Rinus Michels during his unveiling. Third choice on a shortlist of four behind Pep Guardiola and Arne Slot, Xavi can at least sleep safe in the knowledge the Dutch FA considered him a slightly more glamorous candidate than Michael Reiziger, and will begin his international reign with a match against a fellow newbie. Roberto Mancini is back for his second spell in charge, having previously masterminded victory in the European Championship in 2021 and subsequent failure to get to the HRWC in 2022.
A famously patient people when it comes to their national football team, fans of the Azzurri are surely unlikely to get upset if early results against Belgium and Turkey don’t go their team’s way … France: It was a matter of when, not if Zinedine Zidane took over the national team and despite his pedigree as a three-time Bigger Cup-winning coach of Real Madrid, he has extremely big boots to fill. After taking over from his former French water carrier, Didier Deschamps, Zizou played all the right notes. The France national team has been the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me.
It’s a great adventure that I hope is just beginning.” Kylian Mbappé has already described the prospect of working under Zizou as being “like a film”. Its box-office success will almost certainly stand or fall on the chemistry – or lack of it – between two of French football’s most iconic leading men. Join Will Unwin at 5.45pm (BST) for Women’s Bigger Cup updates on Bayern Munich 2-2 Manchester City.
It’s horrible to watch back and to see what could have been. Thankfully I was fortunate I did manage to fall on to the floor at the right time, so nothing snapped as the roller went over me … I was able to get my left arm up and relieve some of the pressure, and then I was able to get my teammates around me who were able to lift it, and I was able to squeeze out but at that moment where it was crushing my left leg, it was quite terrifying, I must say” – Andros Townsend explains what it was like to be run over by that pitch roller in Thailand and just how much he thanks his lucky stars for not coming to more harm than suffering a few cuts and bruises. It’s our man David Squires on … Big Sir Jim lamenting the decline of once-mighty empires.
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