Thomas Tuchel's debut as English coach starts tomorrow: the World Cup qualification is at stake

Thomas Tuchel will make his debut as England's manager on Friday, five months after it was announced. Enough time to settle the dust on the controversy of hiring a German manager to coach England's national team. Tuchel - formerly from clubs like Chelsea, where he won Champions League in 2021, and Bayern Munich, where he worked with Harry Kane - replaced Gareth Southgate with the goal of winning World Cup 2026.

In order to do that, the Three Lions will have to succeed on the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, which begin this week, on Friday March 21, with a match against Albania, a country that England has always won in six games played between the two.

England has, on paper, a very easy group: it is Group K of the World Cup qualifiers, alongside Latvia (whom they face on March 24). They will later face Andorra on September 6 and Serbia on November 13. Winning the group will grant them qualification, while being second will allow them a second chance through the play-offs.

An easy road for World Cup next year, although they will certainly miss not being in the Nations League quarter-finals alongside Tuchel's own Germany, Spain, France, and Denmark, a possibility they missed when they where relegated to Nations League B in 2023. Last November, with Lee Carlsley as interim, they secured promotion to Nations League A again, but that will be for the next edition, after the World Cup.