Atlanta ¨C International soccer has long resisted the foreign coach, especially the major nations who view the World Cup as an expression of national identity, but with Thomas Tuchel¡¯s England and Rudi Garcia¡¯s Belgium reaching the quarterfinals, the old taboo is being tested again.
At the start of the tournament, 27 countries had a foreign national at the helm, up from nine four years ago, but only German Tuchel and Frenchman Garcia ?remain in contention to become the first foreign coach to lift the trophy.
The last time a foreigner led a side to the final was Austrian Ernst Happel, whose ?Netherlands team ?lost to Argentina in 1978, but England may finally have found the recipe after unsuccessful foreign-coach experiments with Sven-Goran Eriksson and Fabio ?Capello. Others ¡ª most notably Brazil with Italian Carlo Ancelotti, who was appointed only a year ago to start a major rebuild of the national team ¡ª have not yet been able to make the same leap.
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