Thomas Tuchel's climb is easiest to read through the numbers. He averaged 1.41 points per game at FSV Mainz 05, left as the most successful coach in the club's Bundesliga history among those to oversee at least a full season, and later built elite résumés at Borussia Dortmund, Paris Saint Germain, Chelsea and Bayern München.
Mainz is where the rise started
Tuchel was appointed Mainz first team head coach on 3 August 2009 after Jörn Andersen was dismissed following a DFB Cup first-round exit to VfB Lübeck. His debut Bundesliga campaign ended with a ninth-placed finish, and the second season opened with seven successive wins, including a 2-1 away victory at Bayern München.
That run is part of why the Mainz spell still stands out. In 2011/12, Mainz finished fifth to reach the Europa League for the first time in the club's history, before losing to Gaz Metan Medias in the third qualifying round. Tuchel also said of that period: "There's definitely a style that's been attributed to me, that we brought to the table at Mainz: pace going forward and attack-minded football. I prefer certain qualities, an active playing style, bold defending and pacy play in attack."
The clubs that followed
The trajectory after Mainz is hard to miss. Tuchel later took Borussia Dortmund, Paris Saint Germain, Chelsea and Bayern München into the kind of conversations that only come with top-level European jobs. The article's European point is really about those milestones, not a claim of continental domination.
Mainz's own present-day position offers a useful contrast. They sit 10th in the 2025 Bundesliga with 40 points from 34 games, a reminder that Tuchel's 1.41 points per game still looks strong against the club's normal baseline. Jürgen Klopp's Mainz mark of 1.13 points per game is lower, and the gap between them is a tidy way of showing how much Tuchel squeezed from that spell.
The England job is the endpoint of that climb, but the evidence for it was laid much earlier in Mainz. The next reference point is still his German coaching record, not some vague reputation, and the 2-1 win at Bayern during that seven-game burst remains one of the clearest markers of how quickly he moved Mainz upward.
Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →