ANTHONY BARRY knew from his first close encounter with Thomas Tuchel that his managerial skills were other-worldly.
England’s assistant head coach had worked with a number of fine bosses during his meteoric rise in coaching, including jobs with FOUR national teams.
But Barry says Three Lions boss Tuchel was alien to everyone else he had met, likening the German to a UFO.
Ex-lower league midfielder Barry was sweating about Tuchel keeping him on at Chelsea when he first took over from Frank Lampard in 2021. Four years on and the duo have won the Champions League, a Bundesliga title with Bayern Munich and are now masterminding England’s latest shot at major tournament glory.
Former Republic of Ireland, Belgium and Portugal coach Barry said: “To say I fell in love with him wouldn’t be an understatement.
“He swept into Chelsea. He floated in, he didn’t walk.
“I’ve never seen anything like him in terms of personality and also in methodology, in a way of working.
“He was something for me that was almost like a UFO. He was not like anything I’d seen before.
“There’s something about Thomas for me… stardust there.
“I can’t exactly say what it is but it’s something special. It’s the X-factor that we all look for. I’m not sure you can learn it. I think it’s God given. And to this day he still has it.
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Plenty might describe Barry as having something similar given his remarkable impact in coaching.
One year before he finished a playing career which saw him climb no higher than League One, Barry found his calling when putting on an evening session for Accrington’s Under-16s.
He was on Stanley’s books at the time but got a bigger buzz teaching those kids than from any game he had played in and instantly felt “at home”.
It was the starting point for a remarkable foray into coaching which has seen him train the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kevin de Bruyne and Harry Kane.
Barry did his Pro Licence alongside Lampard — who eventually hired him at Chelsea — and wrote a thesis on set-pieces having analysed all 16,154 throw-ins from the 2018-19 Premier League season.
He said: “At the time Liverpool were getting a throw-in coach and Paul Merson said, ‘the game’s gone’.
“And, typical me, I wanted to know who was right. So I looked into it.”
In a bid to boost his now considerable communication skills, Barry asked the FA to find challenging environments for him to give presentations.
It included chats with comedy-club punters, schoolchildren and even in-mates.
Barry explained: “One of them was in a prison. I spoke about forming good habits, and after that I took them out on to the astroturf for a session
“It was quite an incredible experience, really. But one that I’m sure allowed me to gain that skill-set of presenting that I wanted.
His first post came as Paul Cook’s assistant at Wigan, before joining Lampard at Chelsea, where he stayed on under Tuchel and was then head-hunted by Stephen Kenny with Ireland.
Roberto Martinez took him to Belgium — who crashed out at the group stage of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar during their time — and then to Portugal.
Tuchel then took him to Bayern, where he worked at club level with Kane, before they left at the end of the 2023-24 campaign having failed to retain the Bundesliga title. Then came England.
FA technical director John McDermott had flown over to meet with Tuchel to discuss the Three Lions role and the next day the FA supremo chatted with the German’s No 2 about it.
Barry recalled: “Thomas and I spent the afternoon in a cafe called Mio’s in Munich talking about could we really bring a second star to England.
“Pretty quickly we had the feeling that, OK, it’s something that we could do with not only this level of player but character of player.
“With the character that we thought was in the squad, with the mission so clear to try to win the World Cup and the affection that Thomas and I both have for this country, the football and the fans… it all seemed to fit.
“Day to day, we try to develop the methodology that gives us the best chance of building a world-class, multi-weaponed England team that is capable of winning the World Cup inside the 50 training days.
“We want to dominate every aspect of the game. We want to conquer every metre of the pitch and that’s what we spend many of our days on.”
Much of that has been geared towards building a ‘Team England’ brotherhood, where players are scrapping for their lives to be in the squad.
England face Serbia on Thursday and Andorra a week today in their final two World Cup qualifiers.
But Barry hates calling it the “international break” because it implies relief from the hectic club schedule.
If anything, he wants players to come to England training knowing they will “feel so stretched it’s a breather when they go back to the club”.
It is all geared towards England having the best chance of succeeding next summer in North America.
Barry, who was in the crowd as a boy when England beat Holland 4-1 at Euro 96, added: “You’re not going to see the best team playing the best football. I think the conditions simply don’t allow.
“The World Cup will be won by a team because you’re going to have to suffer. You’re going to have to overcome obstacles and have to do it together.
“It’s the team out there that has this ‘bring it on’ mentality.
“It’s hot. Bring it on. We’ve got late flights. Bring it on. We play eight games, not seven. Bring it on. There’s a storm. Bring it on. We’ve got a flight with time difference. Bring it on. Bring it on. Bring it on.
“And I think the team that wins the World Cup will be a team that’s ready to suffer and overcome obstacles together.”
