Thomas Tuchel Reflects on Mexico City Victory and Squad Bonding

In the chaos of Mexico City, with ten men clinging to a 3-2 knockout win over the tournament co-hosts, Thomas Tuchel felt something snap into place. Not tactics. Not shape. Something far stranger, far more emotional.

He wanted to eat the pitch.

“I texted a friend after the match and I just wrote, ‘I regret that I didn't eat some grass after the match to keep something from this in my body forever,’” he recalled. “That was the feeling. That was the moment.”

This was not just another away victory. It was survival in a storm, the kind of night that stains itself onto a manager’s memory. The roar, the hostility, the red card, the late push. A monumental overseas test passed in the most dramatic fashion.

And then, amid the euphoria, came the image that told Tuchel everything he needed to know about his squad.

Jordan Henderson, tumbling over an advertising hoarding during the post-match celebrations, crashed awkwardly and broke his arm. The mood flipped in an instant.

Speaking to Daniel Sturridge in an official FA interview, Tuchel described what happened next.

“This game had so much of what you could wish for,” he said. “If you needed any proof of what it meant to these players and how they were with each other, it was the moment when Jordan fell over and broke his arm.

“Within a second, the players were there. Every single player was there stopping the celebrations, building a shield, protecting Jordan – not going nowhere, in full empathy. It was just so special.”

The cameras caught the win. The dressing room caught the bond.

That night, in the thin air and thick noise of Mexico City, something deeper formed. An unbreakable camaraderie, as Tuchel sees it, that now underpins everything heading into Euro 2028.

“It created a huge bond to these players,” he said. “It feels like they are my players now. This is the beauty of it. You have success and you have painful moments together, but you have so much time together and then you create a natural bond.

“So I'm happy to see them. I'm happy to challenge them, happy to push them, and very proud to be a part of that.”

From Mexico to the next mission

The Mexico campaign was brutal and revealing. Ten games in the US: eight wins, one draw, one defeat that still stings. For Tuchel, that body of work is not just a record. It is a launchpad.

“I’m very excited,” he said. “I think we got another step closer and I think we’re there. It’s very difficult to prepare for a World Cup in the US, but I think it’s possible to prepare for a Euros and we prepare in Nations League Tier One.

The target is to have another 10 matches. We had 10 matches in the US – eight wins, one draw, one painful loss. That is something to build on.”

He sees a group that has earned the right to walk tall.

“We all have the right to hold our heads high and go with courage and positivity into the next challenges. We have four matches in Nations League coming up, and that's where the focus is.”

The grass in Mexico stayed on the pitch that night. The feeling didn’t. It travels with them now, into the Nations League, into Euro 2028, into whatever comes when a team that has suffered together starts to believe it is ready to win together.