Thomas Tuchel’s career as a manager has been nothing short of spectacular, however, the same cannot be said of his career as a footballer
As a footballer, Thomas Tuchel played in the lower league
German football where his career was characterized by setbacks and he never got
the chance to play top-flight football like his idol Patrick Vieira
The Chelsea Manager who is widely dubbed as a “master
tactician” was born into a humble family in Krumbach, a small town in Germany,
on the 29th of August 1973. His father, Rudolf Tuchel was a football coach and
his mother Gabriele was a housekeeper.
A college photo of young Thomas Tuchel and his parents
At a tender age, Thomas’ career
ambition was to be a professional footballer or an aircraft pilot. The fact
that his father was a football coach as of then may have had a huge impact on
his ambition to become a footballer. Also, his father was his first coach and
the one who taught him the basic skills of football
Thomas’ ambition of becoming a pro footballer didn’t stop
him from going to school. He attended Krumbach elementary school and when he
was only 6 years old, he joined TSV
Krumbach, a local youth football team coached by
his father. Thomas would later attend Krumbacher High School where he got the
opportunity to play competitive football and showed great potentials.
At 15 years of age, Thomas halted his education in other to
pursue his football career by joining FC Augsburg youth academy. His performance was brilliant
during his first few years with the club, however, as time went on, his
performance began to decline and at 19 years of age, the club cut all ties with
him.
Despite this setback, he remained positive and soon join
another German football club, Stuttgarter Kickers where he got the chance to play senior-level
football in the year 1992. His performance however was not good enough to
convince the club to keep him so they released him in 1994. After attending
several trials, Thomas got signed by SSV Ulm
While at SSV Ulm, he was able to establish himself as a fine
player and the club was happy to keep him. Four years into his contract with
the club, Thomas got another blow in his career. During a football match, he
sustained a chronic knee cartilage injury which
forced him to bring the curtain down on his career at the age of 25.
While nursing his injury, Thomas decided to study economics and football. Later, he took coaching lessons and was privileged to be taught by Helmut Gross the developer of the famous system of Gegenpressing. when he graduated, he got a job as a youth coach with VFB Stuttgart.
Thomas’ career as a coach, was far more
fruitful compared to his career as a player. During his 5 years with VFB
Stuttgart, Thomas groomed several young players like Mario Gomez and Sami Khedira who became first-team players.
He later got appointed as first-team manager at FC Augsburg II and
his performance in 1 year saw him move to Bundesliga side, Mainz. He was later appointed to fill the big
shoes of Jurgen Klopp at Borussia Dortmund before taking over from Unai Emery
at PSG 3
years later.
As a manager, Thomas Tuchel employs a high octane style of
football where his team dominates ball possession, attack in numbers, and press
quickly and this has been instrumental in his success at current club Chelsea
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