Thomas Tuchel, the rule-breaking coach and innovator

Berlin (AFP) – Thomas Tuchel arrives at Paris Saint-Germain with a reputation as a brilliant tactician, albeit with a difficult side.

Tuchel had been unemployed since Borussia Dortmund sacked him last May – just days after the team won the German Cup final.

The 44-year-old was axed after falling out with Dortmund’s CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke and losing the support of the dressing room.

He publicly disagreed with Watzke over whether the team should have played a Champions League quarter-final the day after a series of bombs blasted the team bus.

His players then also turned on him after Tuchel left out stalwart midfielder Nuri Sahin for their 2-1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt in the cup final.

In his two years at Dortmund, it was the only silverware he won in Germany as his side was unable to loosen Bayern Munich’s grip on the Bundesliga.

By his own admission, Tuchel can be a challenging personality.

“I wasn’t easy to deal with as a player,” he admitted in a 2009 interview.

Like his role model Pep Guardiola, Tuchel is not afraid to switch formation or tactics two or three times during a game, making it impossible for opposing coaches to second-guess him.

He can be prickly in post-match press conferences and toys with questions which are not to his taste.

A knee injury cut short his playing career as a defender at third-division Ulm in 1998 and Tuchel turned his hand to coaching.

He cut his teeth in the youth academies at VfB Stuttgart and Augsburg.

His career took off at Mainz where he was promoted from Under-19s boss to first-team head coach two days before the start of the 2009/10 season with no Bundesliga experience.

“We had a rule-breaker at Mainz. The club manager Christian Heidel, who had the courage to make me a Bundesliga coach,” Tuchel later said of his shock appointment.

– Record run –

Tuchel turned out to also be a rule-breaker.

Working with an annual budget dwarfed by Mainz’s Bundesliga rivals, Tuchel succeeded by insisting on high-tempo, attacking football.

He shuffled his side constantly, choosing his team based on the best way to exploit opponents’ weaknesses.

Tuchel believed Mainz could only survive in the league by playing in a variety of styles, making them unpredictable for their rivals.

His side set a Bundesliga record by winning their first seven games of the 2010/11 season.

“We didn’t want to break rules for the sake of it,” he said.

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