The first thing which happened on meeting Thomas Tuchel was that he shared an intriguing Susan Boyle anecdote which cannot yet be retold here because his Borussia Dortmund players are still to benefit from the inspirational values the young German coach sees for them in West Lothian's finest voice.

Suffice to say that she is stepping into Michael Jordan's shoes.

Typical Tommy, the Tuchel followers would say.

Borussia Dortmund manager Thomas Tuchel wants to want to rip up his own central pillars of success

The former Mainz manager is interesting and surprising on practically any football subject you care to raise

Happily, he is at least as interesting and surprising on practically any football subject you care to raise.

His predecessor, the new Liverpool manager, felt Bayern Munich were football's version of the 'Bond villain' gobbling up the world's playing resources.

In contrast, Tuchel reckons Bayern have become 'modest'.

He is passionate about the daily menu at Dortmund's training ground, talking personally-appointed chefs through the jas and the neins of what his players may eat. Tuchel recently indulged in a year-long 'sabbatical' and thinks he will repeat that trick in 2022 because the Qatar World Cup will be 'terrible for European clubs' if it is played during winter.

He is a man who, not just because of last weekend's 5-1 shredding at Bayern Munich, wants to be 'in the eye of the hurricane'.

'Quiet, in a bubble of space, away from the ping-pong back and forward in the football media' is his fuller expression.

And, intriguingly, he is sufficiently revolutionary to want to rip up the central pillars which formed his enormous youth-development success and left him succeeding Jurgen Klopp at Westfalenstadion.

Standing 6ft 4in tall, with the face of Niles Crane, football evangelist by nature — Herr Tuchel is one interesting man. Now that Klopp is hogging the headlines and Tuchel is about to play Mainz (from where each of them trampolined to the Dortmund job) for the first time since walking out on them, it is time to get to know him a little.

Whether moderate talent or a chronic knee problem was his greater problem will rest as a matter of hypothesis, given the fact he was invalided out of second and third division football aged 25.

A youth coach at Stuttgart just two years later, he had already found the vocation in which he was destined for excellence.

His work in developing, teaching and forming successful youth eras at Augsburg and then Mainz earned him promotion to the senior ranks.

Last weekend Tuchel's Dortmund were shredded 5-1 by Jurgen Klopp and his rampant Bayern Munich side

There is so much more texture to his Dortmund ascent but some highlights were Mainz beating Bayern in three straight seasons (Louis van Gaal and Jupp Heynckes the defeated coaches) and consecutive Europa League qualifications.

Prior to defeat in Munich two weeks ago, his reign at Dortmund began with 10 wins, three draws and a flood of goals.

The forum this week in Berlin was an Aspire summit on youth development and Tuchel shared a daring secret. That everything he has done before, he now questions to the point of disbelieving.

'For so many years in youth football I was always demanding better facilities, better equipment via which to test the players, better pitches, better travel, under-soil heating,' he confessed. 'Now I'd do almost the opposite if I was starting again. I'd say: 'Let's make it difficult for them'.

'I'd only want one TV for match analysis and ensure that the video attached to it didn't always work; I'd order that the pitches weren't cut often enough so that the grass was too long; no air-conditioning in the changing room; make sure that the driver for the team bus didn't turn up one day so that the kids had to work out how to make it to the game for themselves.

Everything Tuchel has done before, he now questions, although he is determined not to be a control freak

'It's fantastic to have all the great developmental facilities we have nowadays but we might end up spoiling the emerging talents.

'They have to be able to overcome obstacles, to think for themselves. I don't want them to have so much around them to make their lives comfortable and easy that those things become 'crutches'.

'Great players will emerge on their own — not the mass, but the very best — because they know how to overcome difficulties, to thrive no matter what. That' s what separates them. So for the last five years with Mainz and six months with Dortmund, I've never put on an 11 v 11 training match.

'I might use half the pitch, I might use a very narrow strip of pitch or very wide. But what I attempt to ensure is that I give the players difficulties in training — I try to test them and force them to overcome problems for themselves. Then the solutions will come naturally in match situations.'

Because Tuchel has firm views about the adequate diet for elite footballers, his club handed him control over constructing the nutritional side of his players' daily life. But he shudders at the idea of being a control freak.

Tuchel worked in the Mainz youth system before building his way up to eventually become Dortmund boss

'No way am I a micro manager!' he insisted. 'I would never try to dictate every little detail.

'I know there are some coaches who think that they can drive the team bus better, that they can do the physio's job better and so on.

'I have some clear ideas about what to eat and what to avoid and so the club asked me to appoint a chef.

'I think we eat too many carbs and that it makes us sleep less well.

'But I really am no control freak, I trust my experts and delegate to them.'

He is a worrier — fretting that the modern millionaire football player will be 'unfocused' because of the priority given to the newest contract, car, girlfriend, tattoo, hairstyle, social media account. Whatever.

Tuchel's team-talks are often displaced by motivational videos in an attempt to inspire his players

Which is where his famous use of basketball megastar Jordan, talking about how he had become a success only because of the hundreds of times he had failed, came in.

Tuchel's team-talks are often displaced by motivational videos — hence Susan Boyle! All of which he had time to think about during his 'gap-year' which he seized after quitting Mainz in spring 2014.

'I believe that unless you travelled the globe and did spectacular things, then you'd failed in a sabbatical — wasted it,' he admitted now.

'But it was the opposite! All I did was visit people, think, assimilate, take time to talk and wonder and I'm delighted with how I used my year.