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In the summer that followed Germany’s remarkable World Cup win, Thomas Tuchel gave a six-page interview to a newspaper running through every single country who had played in the tournament.

Tuchel had been out of football for a few weeks by then, having resigned from unfashionable Bundesliga club Mainz. Over a five-year period they had collected more points than all but three teams in the whole of the country: Bayern Munich, Schalke and Bayer Leverkusen.

But it was clear that his insatiable determination to learn about football – the same skill that helped him to keep refreshing and renewing a Mainz team that was like a mini-Borussia Dortmund – was still in evidence. It was dripping with smart lines and eminently readable.

About the English? Well it would surprise few to hear that the man who is a passionate advocate of quick, intensive pressing football thinks the Three Lions should go back to the high-energy game that was once our bedrock.

Tuchel is the outsider for the Newcastle job. The average Premier League fan on the street might not know too much about him, but he is without doubt the most intriguing of the mentioned candidates for the Magpies role.

With all the runners and riders for the Newcastle United head coach role jockeying for position, is the scene set for a dark horse to run up on the rails?

Well Tuchel is certainly a thoroughbred, if German observers are to be trusted.

A brilliant tactical mind who has his teams playing with the high pressing, energetic game that has become the hallmark of most good Bundesliga teams, Tuchel might not have the name value in England but he certainly has it at home. Many think he’ll take over Borussia Dortmund when Jurgen Klopp leaves – and some either think he might succeed Jogi Loew with the national team.

But is there something in talk of a move to United?

“I don’t think it’s utterly unrealistic,” says Raphael Honigstein, writer with Süddeutsche Zeitung. “But I think he’s looking for a really, really big move.

“I think he’s a bit like Klopp, he is very much aware that his next move is important.

“He’s taking care of career and the question now is whether he stays in Germany or goes abroad. Is Newcastle the right fit for him at the moment? I’m not sure.”

He is an outsider. Tuchel’s odds drifted hugely over the last fortnight, from third favourite out to about 60/1 with some bookmakers yesterday.

But Newcastle’s interest is more than just passing. When Lee Charnley talks of some of the potential managerial candidates being unavailable until the summer for “genuine, contractual reasons”, Tuchel certainly fits the bill.

Mainz accepted his resignation at the end of the season with a collectively heavy heart. They didn’t want to lose their talismanic manager, who has never fully explained his reasons for calling it a day other than to pursue new challenges.

Many in Germany felt that they would let him go and join a new club, and he was close to striking a deal with Schalke. But Mainz want 15million Euros if he takes any job before the end of July.

Neither Newcastle nor anyone else would countenance that settlement – and Mainz aren’t likely to back down either. “It looks like its a principle thing,” Honigstein says.

After a career that ended early, Tuchel worked in youth development with Stuttgart and studied under Ralf Ragnick, the great German football pioneer, before getting his first opportunity at Mainz.

He comes from a generation of German coaches who think deeply about the game. He learns, he works and he experiments – he’s not particularly wedded to one formation, preferring to hurt teams by switching systems, styles and ways of playing.

But anyone can be a student of the game. What he did really, really well was getting his team to all sign up to a system of high pressing that requires utter belief in it.

“He had an unbelievable run,” Honigstein says. “There’s a lot of coaches like him coming out of German football, but not everyone gets players to play for them.

“Do most players want to gang up on the left-back in the 55th minute?

“That’s what his system calls for and you can only play that way if all 11 players sign up for it. If seven do, the four who don’t are going to cost you the game.”

That’s the risk for Newcastle and for Tuchel, whose stock is still very high at home. Could you make it work with a crop of players who aren’t versed in the German way?

No one knows. But if United did manage to pull off a move for one of the most exciting coaches in Europe, life might be about to get a bit more interesting.