The wild hip-hop parties that started Tuchel's journey to England boss

Image source, Getty Images Image caption, Thomas Tuchel is bidding to become the first foreign manager to win the World Cup By Kit Holden German football writer Published 2 hours ago When Glenn Hoddle's England started their World Cup campaign in France in 1998, Thomas Tuchel was still working a student job at a bar in Stuttgart. Almost 30 years later, Tuchel is now the England manager tasked with doing what Hoddle and so many others failed to do - win the World Cup for the Three Lions. The 52-year-old German is known as one of the game's keenest minds, a coach obsessed with detail and blessed with a special gift for analysis. It is hard to imagine that in the late 1990s, Tuchel was working at the wildest parties in Stuttgart and hanging out with some of Germany's biggest hip-hop stars. Yet it was there, having almost given up on football entirely, that Tuchel began his journey to World Cup management. Last year, respected German coach Ralf Rangnick recalled the story of how he launched Tuchel's career as a coach. "When I found out that he was working in a bar in Stuttgart to earn his living, I could hardly believe it," Rangnick told the BBC , external in an interview with former Germany and Aston Villa midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger. "I called him and I said, 'what are you doing?' He said 'I have to earn my living there'. I said to him, 'Thomas, please, why don't you come to us in Stuttgart and work as a youth-team coach?' "I brought him together with the academy director and that's how his coaching career started." To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. This video can not be played Figure caption, From bartender to England manager - Rangnick reflects on Tuchel's journey Tuchel had played under Rangnick at SSV Ulm and the two had long admired each other. At Ulm in the early 1990s, Rangnick was laying the groundwork for a tactical revolution in German football as one of the first managers to introduce zonal marking. As Tuchel later told Sky Sports, the coach "changed the way I watched football on television". Rangnick, meanwhile, quickly earmarked the young defender as a possible future coaching talent. "He was always interested in why we play the way we play," Rangnick told the BBC. "After a couple of weeks when you are a head coach you can always pretty precisely tell which players could become a coach." Tuchel's playing career was cut short by injury. Damage to the cartilage in his knees was causing such severe pain that he could barely walk up and down stairs. He had an operation at the age of 23 in a bid to save his career, but eventually realised he would have to retire. The knee issue ended his dream of playing in the Bundesliga, and as he told Die Zeit , external in an interview in 2017, it left him strapped for cash because his insurance had not covered the operation. Having given up his first degree in sport and English to focus on football a few years earlier, Tuchel was now back to square one. "I still had n