Thomas Tuchel says he is “always ready” for the pressure of managing England, having “felt more” of it in his career.
The German suffered the first real negativity of his time in charge so far, as his team were booed off when drawing 0-0 at half-time away to lowly Andorra. Although England eventually won 1-0, Tuchel himself said he feared the team was “playing with fire” and that a real international upset was on the cards.
“I always feel pressure as I am not happy with myself,” he said after the game at the RCDE Stadium, which naturally saw a significant majority of England fans.
“The biggest pressure comes from myself. We have three wins and three clean sheets and we have a friendly match on Tuesday [against Senegal]. I have felt more pressure than that.”
Tuchel has managed at Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea, Qatar’s Paris Saint-Germain and the expectation of Bayern Munich, but it was put to him that the England job can be more intense.
“Fair enough,” he responded. “I am always ready for that.”
Tuchel had said he planned a meeting with his players on Sunday to remind them of the standards expected, so was asked how he wanted the players to feel about the Andorra game.
“I am not sure about this question. This is a top group. I love the players. I love their character. They know that they under performed. There is not a big thing in it. We know we under-performed and we are open about it and I think they are eager to do it better. We will now show them exactly what we want from them and how to it better in the video session tomorrow and the day after.”
Tuchel similarly dismissed the idea that there was any risk in being so scathing about his team as he was in the post-match media duties.
“What risk? You were in the stadium. What should I tell you? That we played a good match and are happy? The risk is only that you exaggerate it and make something of it that was not there. Everything I said I said already to the team. There is no harm done. We were not happy and no single player will be happy with what we showed today. Why would the coach be? And why would we be shy of saying so? If we want top get better we first need to address that we were not happy with the end of both halves.
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“I would choose the same line up again because that was my choice on what we saw and what we believed. I thought it was a very strong line up according to the occasion. We didn’t wanna give the signal that we just changed and felt it was won anyway. But now we have a game that we don’t really like and that we were not happy with and try to do better.”
While the Andorra performance adds a bit more edge to Tuesday’s friendly against Senegal at the City Ground, Tuchel was just appreciative of the minutes with the team.
“It would have been a good test anyway. No matter how well or not well we played today. It was always a good test. We don’t have a lot of matches. We worship every training and we worship every match. Of course it will be a good test.”
