England legend Stuart Pearce believes Thomas Tuchel can lead the Three Lions to 2026 World Cup glory and has urged players to seize their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity this summer
Stuart Pearce is urging England’s squad to grab the golden chance to clinch World Cup glory. The Three Lions legend believes that “fantastic” Thomas Tuchel has what it takes to guide them to triumph in the United States this summer.
Pearce, an iconic figure in English football with 78 caps to his name, only experienced one World Cup tournament as a player, enduring semi-final heartache at Italia 90 when he missed a penalty in the shoot-out defeat to West Germany.
Despite his reputation as a fiercely patriotic Englishman, the ex-Nottingham Forest left-back – known as Psycho for his tough-guy image – is convinced that Tuchel can give England the edge they need to cross the finish line.
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Now a media pundit at 64, Pearce said: “I’m excited. If I put my mind back as a player, coach or as a manager, you are nervous because you hope there are no injuries to key players. “From an individual point of view, I was an international for 12 years but I only went to one World Cup, so they come round quite rarely.”, reports the Mirror.
“The players should be looking forward to this. It’s a fantastic opportunity and even for me, working on the media side, it’s exciting times. Tuchel comes across really well. People pre-judge me and think maybe I don’t want a foreign manager at the helm of the England team like Sven Goran Eriksson, Fabio Capello as well, who I worked with.”
Pearce stated: “But I think that whoever is the manager, we have to get right behind him. At talkSPORT, we did a long interview with him [Tuchel] last summer and he came across really well, very open. If you ask him a question, he will give you a straight answer. In this day and age, it’s quite rare. Especially in the position that he holds.
“If we get a bit of momentum as we’ve seen over the years, plus if he gets the formula right and the balance right, we’ll be a tough team to beat.”
Pearce believes England are probably among the second-tier favourites to win the trophy, but with world-class players like Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham, they have a solid foundation. His point is that they might not get many more chances.
Under Gareth Southgate, the Three Lions came close, but now Tuchel, a top-notch manager with a Champions League win under his belt, has been brought in to win the World Cup.
Pearce continued: ” France and Spain, if I had to pick two, that’s who I would call favourites. If you go down the pecking order, we’ll be a tough nut to crack. Put it that way. But I’m intrigued to see how we do because [Tuchel] was brought in to go a step further than Gareth Southgate did and Gareth took us to the latter stages of these tournaments. He’s got a fantastic record that I’m acutely aware of.
“We’re all intrigued how far Tuchel can take us. At the helm, maybe experiences do matter, but – as I found out in my time – it takes you a major tournament to work out what international football is all about. You get a lot of managers come in and they think you can transfer what they’ve done at club level into the international fold.
“But the international fold is so different. How much to train the players at the end of the season, how much to rest them, all those type of things you get that with experience and Gareth picked up on that with his experience both as a player and as a coach. But it will be an intriguing and a great learning curve for Thomas Tuchel himself. I’m really pleased that his contract has been extended so there’s no boom and bust mentality after this.
“If his contract had run out this summer, they might have been turning round and they might have been saying, ‘Here you go, it didn’t work out, on you go’. But at least you can learn from it and improve for the next tournament.”