Thomas Tuchel, the skipper for Chelsea F.C. of the English Premier League, has gained renown as one of the best soccer coaches in the world today. But he has no desire to be a politician and made that abundantly clear earlier this week.
Tuchel was in a press conference on Tuesday ahead of his side’s FA Cup match with Luton Town F.C., when he was peppered with questions about the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
But the reporters did not even get so much as a sniff of an answer from the German coach, who emphatically refused to respond to any questions about the war.
🗣️ "So even to talk about it I feel bad because I'm very privileged."
— B/R Football (@brfootball) March 1, 2022
Thomas Tuchel after being asked about Roman Abramovich and the war in Ukraine pic.twitter.com/8iR4jfjHcA
“How often do I need to say it? It’s horrible, of course, it’s horrible, there cannot be any other opinion about it,” Tuchel said. “Everybody in Europe has some noise in [their] head that nobody likes. Maybe it’s the same for you, but you still try to do your job as good as possible and it’s the same for us.”
The war has an extra layer of intrigue and drama for the Blues because their owner, Roman Abramovich (who is Russian), has put the club up for sale. ESPN reported that Abramovich put the club up for sale so as to “separate the club from a possible personal sanction from the U.K. government” (he had also entrusted the care of the club to its trustees on Saturday).
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Tuchel also said that his side can only hope to “distract” their fans from the conflict through playing soccer.
In light of all the swift condemnation of the war from athletes throughout the sports and the corresponding virtue signaling from plenty of others, Tuchel’s response might seem insensitive. But Tuchel might actually have just given one of the most thought out responses on the war that anyone in sports has given yet.
Cultural and political issues often collide with sports, and there is often an expectation that the athletes and coaches we revere will provide some level of wisdom, insight, or hope that will help us through whatever struggle our societies experience. But sometimes the best thing that they can do is the very thing they get paid to do: play ball.
Tuchel seems to understand that if he commented anything on the state of the club’s ownership or the war at large, he would provide no new take or insight on the situation and chose to keep his focus on coaching his highly successful squad. That is something that the sports world could use a lot more of these days.