MAIL SPORT COMMENT: It’s a dark day for England as the manager’s job goes to a GERMAN… and Thomas Tuchel only has 18 months to prove he’s up to it

International football should be the best of ours versus the best of theirs.

Gareth Southgate might not have been everyone’s cup of tea, but he gave our national team identity and the players — and all of us — a reason to believe. He went into tournaments with hope and expectation.

He wore the Three Lions on his shirt as a player and brought that force and pride into the job every day. He went from Euro 96 as a player to semi-finals and finals (two of them) as a manager. He was one of us.

Now we have Thomas Tuchel, a German with a questionable managerial background and an FA running around like headless chickens in a panic to get in first before Manchester United. Lee Carsley clearly wasn’t the right man, but is this REALLY the best we can do?

Has nobody learned from the ‘take-the-money-and-run’ attitude of Sven-Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello?

Tuchel will follow in the footsteps of non-English Three Lions bosses Sven-Goran Eriksson (left) and Fabio Capello

And what does this say about the English coaching system? How insulting, ignorant and unforgivably short-sighted. Would Spain or France take this approach?

We may have made an exception for the mighty Pep Guardiola, but now we have a gun for hire who owes us nothing and will pass through our game with a huge cheque and no connection to the fans or players.

This is a dark day for English football. We are the laughing stock of the world game.