World Cup 2026: What Goes Into International Football Management

There’s no such thing as time in international football. Coaches are asked to build greatness in fragments: a few days here, a few days there, brief windows snatched between club seasons.

In those scraps, they’re expected to build strategy, rhythm and belief, then step back and wait for the spotlight of the World Cup to expose every gap in front of the world.

The job of an international manager may seem more pedestrian than the constant maelstrom of the club game. But while fewer games and training days across a campaign may look easier from the outside, the scarcity is what makes it such a pure test of leadership.

Bad defeats or decisions can linger for months, and a lack of regular contact with players makes the communication of ideas and culture so much harder. There’s a lack of control but no less pressure, like a Sunday driver suddenly being thrust into the cockpit of a Formula One car hurtling towards a high-speed chicane.

Only coaches with a certain temperament can handle the challenge. Even some of the world’s best club bosses find they can’t adapt to what is needed to succeed with a national team.

Speaking with dozens of international managers, I’ve found the same theme regularly surfaces. Forget complex tactical plans and carefully choreographed sequences that are curated over months of training sessions, the job requires short, concise instructions that are consistent and can be put into action quickly.

“I thought the way to prepare for games and try to affect the players would be the same,” Portugal head coach Roberto Martinez once told me when discussing his first months in charge of an international side. “But I was wrong. I had to change my mindset and focus on what was essential in this job and try to learn very quickly how to prepare the players in the best way in a short period of time.”

Naturally, this makes international football a more pragmatic game. More of a throwback. If there’s less time for intricate plays, the focus is on a simple structure that often leads to more defensive play, which is easier and quicker to organise than some of the fluent attacking moves we see the top club teams produce.

Other coaches have spoken about being more reactive when it comes to choosing tactics, being more observant and collecting more data on players from different clubs to understand what is going to be the easiest approach for them to adapt to. This isn’t so much about imposing a coach’s identity on the team as often happens in the club game, but landing on what fits players now.

Of course, that can be controlled to a certain extent by squad selection. England manager Thomas Tuchel has publicly spoken about the “sportive choice” not to pick Real Madrid’s Trent Alexander-Arnold in any of his pre-tournament squads, just as other big names have failed to fit in the plans of their national teams in the past.

Mastering squad selection is another key part of an international manager’s job. It’s not simply about picking the best 23 players from the current crop, there’s a need for continuity to build a core group that is familiar with each other, however sporadic the international calendar is.

Establishing a leadership team of players that remains constant – unless injury or a drastic dip in form dictates differently – is an important move. This is how international teams can start to build a culture even when they don’t spend much time together, with other players knowing what to expect at camps when they arrive.

This is never more important than during a World Cup, with some international coaches concentrating as much on motivation and building environments as the playing side of things.

Training camps for major tournaments can be tense, with players living on top of each other for long periods of time in a way that is rarely replicated domestically. Therefore, creating and maintaining harmony is key, with happy players who feel comfortable more likely to be successful players.

This is always true in any form of the game, but a tournament’s unique blend of pressure and boredom in a sealed environment magnifies this. Players need protecting and to be focused, but also need to be able to let off steam.

Coaches favouring a stricter and more disciplined approach normally find it difficult to sustain over an entire tournament. If the environment becomes too restrictive, players can begin to feel trapped – they still want to win, but defeat also offers escape from the restraints they’re living under.

Soft skills come to the fore again. Former England boss Gareth Southgate introduced wellness questionnaires in the 2018 World Cup to encourage players to be more open and came up with ways for them to switch off between matches, while Vicente del Bosque let his Spain squad go for a mid-tournament night out to blow off some steam in 2010 after beating Portugal in the last-16. Two weeks later, La Roja were World Cup champions for the first time.

It’s proof that the best international managers understand the job isn’t to show how much they know, it’s to decide what it takes to get the job done. In international football, the best managers aren’t those who built the most, they’re ones that know what to leave out.